UK Shipping/Payment

[MattUK]

I realise that this is probably specific to a few people on the forum, so sorry for wasting everybody elses time :)

I'm currently setting up my first ever OSCommerce installation and I'm now fairly happy with installing payment and shipping modules. That now leaves me with the question of who to use for each.

As far as the payment processer goes I'm looking at Velocity Pay. As I understand it there is a flat fee of £20p/m which seems fairly reasonable to me. Though does anyone recommend any others?

Also the shipping company I'm looking to use seems to be the hardest decision. My goods will be sent internationally, mostly to the UK, Europe and the USA though. I'd avoid Royal Mail like the plague as I've had so many things go missing with them in the past. Parcelforce are very expensive. At the moment I've been told that Initail City-Link are fairly reasonable, though I've yet to see their rates. Who here from the UK ships goods - UK or internationally and who do you use?

[T0PS3O]

I do!

I've built an OsC contrib (well, modified an old one) for Barclays ePDQ as payment. I also installed UK Direct Bank Transfer and the cheque/poastal order.

About shipping, we do have Royal Mail account, Parcel Force account a CityLink account and a Palletways account. We're looking into Parceline who have better rates than CityLink (based on our numbers). They both have these 'packs' and if the majority of your stuff fits in such a pack and is under 5KG then yes, CityLink or Parceline are really good options. It costs about 5.20 to send though but they are next day guaranteed. Parcelforce 48 isn't that much more but you can send Islands/Abroad. Citylink over water is a fortune.

You will basically need any UK + another international courier is my experience. DHL could be a nice option as well but I haven't looked at their rates.

[MattUK]

So the best thing to do would be to use several options, the customer could then select the cheapest at the point of ordering?

What's the Barclays ePDQ? I don't think I've heard that mentioned before. I have a Barclays account so it may be worth me looking into.

[T0PS3O]

If you have a merchant account then you can bolt on ePDQ to oscommerce and they will host the payment facilities. Like worldpay etc. but a bit more professional and customizable. And you have admin access and set fraud rules etc. See epdq.co.uk it think it is.

Yes you could let the customer choose but I wouldn't. If they then choose citylink for abroad you'll pay a fortune and have a pile of papers to fill out (if they even do that).

I would work it out per product. UK Mainland deliver 5 quid. UK remote/islands 10. West Europe 20, rest of Europe 25, Rest of world 40 or whatever. You will know which products go which courier. And you will know your rates. Remember all rates are negotiable so work out a deal no matter how small you start (same with banking fees). < 2 KG and inexpensive = Royal Mail. <5 KG up to a few hundred quid and fits citypack = CityLink. <30 KG odd shapes and internationals all go ParcelForce with us. Etc.

[MattUK]

Thanks for the advice, I had considered pricing per product before but ran into problems with customers ordering multiple products, is there a way of getting around this?

[T0PS3O]

Not really. Although there are some contribs that try and do that. If hacked some shipping modules to suit my needs. There is an order toal variable which stores the number of items in a basket. So based on that you could reduce the price if it's inflated.

But we work mostly on a 'you win some you loose some' basis when it comes to shipping. As long as the shipping fee stays reasonable, it doesn't matter.

It depends on the range of products as well. On one site a table fee structure works well with just different tables per shipping zone (I use GB, GB Islands/Remote, NI, ROI for one site). Other sites where you ship stuff from little nails to pallet delivery stuff, you need to get more creative.

[expat]

Hi,

for the small stuff we use RM registered works OK to US etc Greece a bit of aproblem takes 3 weeks.... we are now using business mail 5 days....

To eastern countries for larger bits we use a specialised company.

TOPS has listed the best options outside this.

On one of our shops we have shipping in the calculation like you tried. Thus when a punter orders 2 or more no problem in using CityLink or PF. Some products make a small loss others make a small profit on this generic calculation but free shipping still works....

Again agree with Tops if you are Barclays ePDQ is an option.... don't forget PayPal has dropped the registration so it's a valid option as well.

Expat

[MattUK]

Okay I'll take a look at how I calculate the shipping on here.

What's the RM business mail that you mentioned Expat? Is that to limited destinations?