Protex - Shipping cost

[surbit100]

Hi Community
Please give us some advise,
We ship worldwide and shipping costs are based on many factors (weight, volume, location, speed etc,) as such when customers place an order it is not possible for us to give the shipping cost at the time of placing the order. We advise them of the shipping cost by e-mail after seeing the order and if they agree we add the shipping cost to the order and ship them and process the card as customer not present. Customers are quite happy.

We are trying to use Protx to process card details. According to Protx, we can only amend the original invoice amount by 15%. This won't cover the shipping cost. (some time invoice is about £100 and Shipping cost is £200, customers are happy to pay)

Protx advise us to set-it-up as recurrent payment to over come this problem and need to have merchant account set-it-up as such with the bank,. We use Streamline and the streamline tell us, that recurrent payment will not work with all type of cards.

Can someone tell us any other option, may be through Actinic, or by Protx

We are using Actinic V7 and our website is www.surbitonart.co.uk

Thank you in anticipation

[cdicken]

Hi Philip

One suggestion would be to upgrade to v9 and use Actinic Payments. The reason for this is that it allows you to add new items to the order (e.g. a shipping charge) and then take additional payments on the order by clicking a button within the Actinic application.

[leehack]

Are you 100% sure your shipping costs can't be done automatically, there is a wealth of functionality on the shipping side, i'd be pretty surprised if yours could not be catered for. You'd also be the first i'd seen as not possible.

[Rich Brady]

We ship worldwide and shipping costs are based on many factors (weight, volume, location, speed etc,) as such when customers place an order it is not possible for us to give the shipping cost at the time of placing the order.

Many of use take all of these factors into consideration too and have created shipping table that suit.

Creating the shipping tables in my first site was a real nightmare, not because Actinic couldn't do it, but becasue I didn't fully understand what information to enter.

I suggest "Maximun Weight" is the way forward and may take you a few hours to get all the information in, but you'll get that back when you don't have to send an email to every customer...

[surbit100]

Thank you Rich
Look at the simple parcel, you will see the problem

If you pack a bulky item that weigh just 5kg into a 40x46x60cm size box. For the UK freight it is counted as 5kg. If it goes to western europe, sent by road freight, it become 27.5kg (40x46x60/4000- road freight volume weight calculation), When you send it by air freight it become 18.4 kg (40x46x60/6000, air freight volume calculation)

There are 6 pricing zones just for western europe, not counting the rest of the world

Now you can see the problem. We have over 5000 products,

[cdicken]

v9 does also support volumetric pricing. You can enter either a weight, or a volume, or both in for each product. Actinic will then compare the weight cost and the volume cost, compare the two and offer your customers the cheapest shipping option online.

It will mean entering weight and volume info in for each product, but it's not impossible if you already have that data somewhere electronically.

[Rich Brady]

You could stop offering a choice between Air and Land???

Alternatively, enter volumetric rates based on one formula LxWxH/4000 for instance.

Populate the Road Freight Table normally, but when it comes to filling in the Air Freight Table adjust the weights you should be entering (LxWxH/4000) by 1/3. This should bring the prices back in line.

If you use Access and Excel it should save you some time, but Back Up first before changing the Databases...

[surbit100]

Hi Chris
I love to use V9, I wanted to use Actinic payment to overcome Protx issue. I tried to upgrade and spend a few weeks to resolve the upgrade issue, no success and I had to give it up. Products are not aligning, section layout all going into pieces. Even though we had no custom modification to V7, V9 looses the entire layout. When I try Actinic Support it take two to three days to get reply as actinic support service only work during office hours, but I can only do during evening. I have tried to offer to third parties (Actinic recommended partners) to do the upgrade, They say they will call me back but never to be heard again. If anyone want to take up this challenge and have a go I am more than happy to listen.

Thank you

Phillip