mischarging

[john harding]

Well spotted!! Here is the Zone / Class table for the rest of the world. I see that "Divide Product Weights by Weight in Kilograms" has a value of 1. The UK Zone / Class table is identical in that respect. Even as an exercise in English I can't figure out what that means. If I substituted a figure of 0 would SD charge infinity?

I really thought you were on to something, so I went back and looked at some other orders, hoping to find that the combined weights of the product added up to the shipping cost applied by SD. Unfortunately there seems to be no consist ency. I haven't found another case where the postage was in a simple relationship to the weight.

For a good deal of 2013 SD was charging correctly, with occasional forays into fiction. If I go back about three years the handling charge was applied in full but I was being second-guessed on postage. The second-guessing seems to start when the postage rises much above £1.10. With some higher figures it's more than halved.

I can't swear that there haven't been some accidental changes in settings but it doesn't seem very likely (although it has gone back and forth a bit between me and my designer).

[john harding]

Sorry, I failed to attach the screenshot. Here it is.

[leehack]

Well spotted!! Here is the Zone / Class table for the rest of the world. I see that "Divide Product Weights by Weight in Kilograms" has a value of 1. The UK Zone / Class table is identical in that respect. Even as an exercise in English I can't figure out what that means. If I substituted a figure of 0 would SD charge infinity?

I'm running a v10 site at the moment, where are you seeing this part, Mike's idea was inspired and a great spot, i wonder if not that, whether the % of shipping charge is being used by mistake or in error for some reason in some places. This could explain erratic non sensical prices.

There no no excess charges or optimal weights in play are there on the configuration tab?

[Mike Hughes]

Wrong image. That one still shows the 'Uk delivery' table.

[john harding]

Sorry, Mike. My head is spinning. This one should be the overseas shipping bands.

Lee, there's a screenshot of the Configuration tab above. The only anomaly I can see on it is that "If Shipping Band is Not Defined" (another piece of English I'm not sure I understand), "Use Default Charge" is selected, with a value of £10.

I think I enabled that because it seemed preferable to "Do Not Allow Shipping"! But in any case it shouldn't have any effect because the shipping band IS defined (If I understand what that means).

I do wonder whether my experience is all that unique. I've managed to go nearly four years without noticing what was happening, because when I get an order I don't spend much time looking to see what postage has been charged, and none at all working out whether it's right. It was only by chance that I noticed recently that 25p was not the right handling charge, and that £2.14 is a figure foreign to the Post Office.

The heart of this mystery seems to me to lie in "original-calculated-current". SD clearly thinks it's doing some sort of job there, and I don't understand what. I can't imagine how it arrives at an "original" figure for shipping, if not by calculating. And if it didn't invent an "original" figure the problem wouldn't arise, because it's that original that imposes its will over the calculation.

The case of the handling charge is different. "Original" is always the same as "Calculated", but "Current" has a will of its own.

I can't see the need for any value for shipping other than "Calculated", ditto for Handling, but evidently the Actinic people thought differently. Somebody at Sellerdeck must understand what's supposed to be going on, but I can't reach them.

[Mike Hughes]

It is very odd.

As I understand it (and I could well be wrong) the 'Original' value means the value as calculated at the time of the order. The 'Calculated' value is what it thinks it should be based on looking at the order at the present time and the 'Current' value is what it's using. If you click the 'update' button it will change the 'Current' value to be whatever is in the 'Calculated' field.

Two things strike me about this.

1. Sellerdeck knows what it should be charging at the time of viewing the order.
2. The amount being calculated when the order is placed is wrong and seems to be consistent. (I added the same item to the cart and got the same £1.89 delivery charge for shipping to the US - plus the odd 25p handling charge).
3. It rather looks as if the online store is ignoring the shipping table and charging the excess for international orders (although that's also screwed up if I order more than 1 of the item.)

This implies to me that something is screwy in the database. (to use another of my technical terms).

What I would do is:

1. Compact and repair the database.
2. Do a full purge and refresh of the website.
3. Test to see if the problem is still there.

If that doesn't work I'd upgrade to V11 and hopefully the problem won't copy across.

If it does then you can chase sellerdeck for support to fix it.

Mike

[leehack]

The calculated shipping value is different from the original if a change has been actioned, usually something you would do. SD is showing you the original amount on the order and the adjusted amount subsequently. I'm not saying you have adjusted them without knowing, but it all points to some sort of interaction by you regarding this. Do you do something weird for back orders or anything like that? This would typically get used by someone ringing up, perhaps adding an item to an order and you then changing shipping to make it a bit cheaper, a gesture or correction or goodwill etc.

Yours is the first SD site i have come across in 9 or 10 years that uses a handling charge, it's often such a turnoff, i doubt you will get a host of people to confirm or deny the problem as i feel it is used so little nowadays.

[john harding]

Mike - thanks, I that screwy covers it. I've compacted the orders database but I'm not quite sure what you mean by "repair". I presume you mean purge all four categories. I don't find "repair dababases" in Help.

Refreshing the website doesn't seem a bad idea (although given that it was getting shipping wrong three years ago ...)

Lee - I've never intervened in the process. Nor can it be the case that there is any updating going on at the customers' end, not when it all works like clockwork for a few months then goes wrong for the next year or so.

I don't like handling charges either, but the product itself is ludicrously cheap and probably needs to be now that people expect to get music for nothing. A lot of people place orders so small that the weight of the packaging sends them into the next postal band. I'm trading to try and keep chamber music alive, not to make money, but nobody will keep it going after me if it continues to make a loss. The alternative is a minimum order, but to me that seems worse.

However, I understand what you're saying. People tend not to use handling charges so won't be in a position to comment on glitches.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

When was the last time you did a 'publish to web', could it be that incorrect shipping table were uploaded in the past that you have corrected on offline but not uploaded to the site.
That is the only explanation I can see that would cause the current and calculated values to be different if you haven't done anything.

You also mention that packaging often pushes your actual packages into the next weight band, but you can always add a typical packaging weight to your weight bands to account for this.
For example instead of UK 0.5kg weight band charging £1.40 why not increase it to 0.55kg or 0.6kg giving you a 50g o 100g packaging allowance built in.

Is there a reason why you need to charge your customers the Royal Mail rates, you could always remove the handling charge and just add a little extra to the delivery charges, alternatively move to a flat rate delivery charge system.

[john harding]

I shall be doing a complete refresh very soon, and will see whether that changes anything. What worries me most is the lack of any obvious consistency, which makes it difficult to advance any single explanation.

The trouble with playing fast and loose with the shipping bands is that the effect becomes quite large with a large order, and it's only with very small orders - which are numerous - whose uneconomic nature needs some corrective. The handling charge is applied just once, whether the goods cost £2 or £120.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

A full refresh would certainly worth doing but if it likely to take a while you could just do a Publish to Web which should be much quicker and will upload the latest shipping tables

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

The trouble with playing fast and loose with the shipping bands is that the effect becomes quite large with a large order, and it's only with very small orders - which are numerous - whose uneconomic nature needs some corrective. The handling charge is applied just once, whether the goods cost £2 or £120.

I am not sure what you mean when you say 'the effect becomes quite large with a large order', perhaps you thought I meant add 50g to each product (which as you stated wouldn't work as the extra weight would accumulate and be inaccurate), what I was suggesting was to alter the weight bands themselves although have just realised I suggested the band be moved in the wrong direction. What I should have suggested was to change the 0.5kg - £1.40 weight band to be 0.45kg - £1.40, so should a customer buy 3 items each weighing 160g the total product weight is 0.48kg and under the old weight band would be charged at £1.40 but after packaging you would be hit with a higher charge by Royal Mail for the over 500g band by Royal Mail (assuming packaging exceeds 20g) and with the amended weight bands the customer would get moved upto the £1.90 band.
To remove the separate 75p handling charge just add 75p to each weight band, so my suggestion for weight band would be to change from the current:

0.10 - £0.69
0.25 - £1.10
0.50 - £1.40
0.75 - £1.90
1.00 - £3.50
1.25 - £5.60
1.50 - £6.50
1.75 - £7.40
2.00 - £8.30

to
0.08 - £1.44
0.22 - £1.85
0.45 - £2.15
0.70 - £2.65
0.95 - £4.25
1.20 - £6.35
1.45 - £7.25
1.70 - £8.15
1.95 - £9.05

The above amended table keeps your prices the same but the handling charge and shipping charge are merged into a single delivery charge as I see no benefit in keeping the charges separate and also builds in a small margin for packaging weights.

P.S. Please note I wouldn't make the above changes myself until you have sorted the discrepancies in pricing you have reported as it might just add to any confusion, but certainly worth considering for the future.

[john harding]

Sorry, Darren, it's been a long day and my head is more than averagely impervious to anything involving figures. I should have understood what you were suggesting.

And in fact I seem to recall that in the mists of time I did something of the sort. I'm not sure why I didn't carry on. Probably I was pressed for time and - I know how ridiculous this is going to sound but - the thought of having to add a small amount to each figure convinced me that I would get it all wrong. I can do it if I concentrate. In fact I could probably delegate it to Excel, which I find easier than simple arithmetic.

Meanwhile - so far so good - I have purged and refreshed as you suggested, Mike, and tried ordering 3-001, as you did, and for me, this time, it got both shipping and handling right.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I can confirm that I have added the same item to the basket and all now seems to calculate as designed. Changing quantities also seems to calculate correctly.
Hopefully once orders download they continue to be correct.

[john harding]

Thanks, that's good of you. For now, it's a matter of keeping an eye on things.

Is there anything more frightening than unpredictability and inconsistency?