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ZIP Range for shipping
Hi @Lawrence ,
I would like to suggest and to add the same ZIP Range settings in TAX to the Shipping methods,
For packets there uses to be differents cost of shipping depending on that.
Thanks
Sergio
I would like to suggest and to add the same ZIP Range settings in TAX to the Shipping methods,
For packets there uses to be differents cost of shipping depending on that.
Thanks
Sergio
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How difficult would it be to sort shipping by zip code?
You already have the data in for tax purposes
https://postcalc.usps.com/DomesticZoneChart
My 3 digit zip is 800
From Zone 2 to Zone 7, same package can have the cost multiplied to 3 or 4, the heavier the package, the larger is the gap.
> ... We will have a think if there is a way around this. ...
"US shipping from:"
I won't pretend to even guess how the database is setup, but what if the cart screen had an X character alphanumeric field for the buyer to manually input their zip code and "estimate" any additional shipping options? (which would then track back to tables we have on the seller side that match our zone-based shipping charges). ? Just thinking out loud! Could then recycle the code on the seller table setup side from the tax area... ?
Similar to what Colorado Bricks said, in the US, there are 9 different shipping zones.
The zone prices and - this is important - what zip (postal) code falls into a zone is based on the shipper's address (seller's). My zone 1 prices and which sellers fall in that will be totally different than any other seller outside of where i live. :-)
Maybe coupled with a note (for stores enabling this), "Login to view shipping estimates"?
According to https://ribbs.usps.gov/zone_charts/documents/tech_guides/ZoneChartExceptionsWebinar.pdf, the USPS determines which of the 9 postal zones to apply based on the physical distance between the originator zip and the recipient zip. The exception is determining the LOCAL zone, which is based specifically on the five-digit zip code.
The ranges are:
Zone Distance
1 Nonlocal zones within a 50 mile radius of the point of origination
2 51 to 150 mile radius
3 151 to 300 mile radius
4 301 to 600 mile radius
5 601 to 1000 mile radius
6 1001 to 1400 mile radius
7 1401 to 1800 mile radius
8 1801 miles and over
There are exceptions for the freely-associated states, e.g., the Marshall Islands, and the 16 zip codes comprising Guam and the Mariana Islands.
So I don't see any way (based on my NON developer brain - I'm a manager-type in system development, not an actual developer) Lawrence can build this into the DB.
I do suspect though, that maybe empty fields that port into a data table - by SELLER - could be an option where we have a shipping table that adds "zip code band" as a new option layered above weight and price bands (we still need the latter two so we can constrain our zone prices by weight, for example).
To be clear, this all comes down to how much unique data and tables the system can reasonably accommodate.
So then the burden is on me to look at all the zip codes online to determine the LOCAL zone (that requires up to five-digits) and population of Zones 1-9. And we need to be able to enter five-digits in those as individual entries or bands, e.g., 91900-92041 OR 91921.
With a logged-in user in the US, the system would then also look at these options for First Class, First Class Package Service, and so on. Then we could do this.
I've no idea how complicated this would be to do... again, I may have just described a developer's worst nightmare or a physically impossible thing to do. (Uhhh... if so... I plead complete ignorance of what I'm talking about and apologize!).
I suspect it's a pretty large data file. :-)
With regards to the actual methods that use zonal pricing, how important are they? So, in the UK, we have cheap "large letter" pricing for small items and "parcel" pricing for everything else. Are zonal pricing methods frequently needed or cheaper than other methods available?
Begin by looking what can be done for the U.S. though, a lot more sellers and customers would be pleased with that. :)
For first class package, if the total is less than 4 pounds and meets DIM constraints, we can use flat-rate prices. Those are higher in cost for customers who live closer to you than what the "real" price would be if we used pair-based pricing, I would assume. For over 4 pounds or DIM-busting oversize lightweight parts, you have to do pair-based pricing (request a quote).
Ground service we cannot do at all without zip codes built in, so all customers have to request a quote for that.
For expedited services like priority mail and express mail, I'm sure most folks do what I did and post the flat-rate prices with specific size/weight constraints. Those are also services that could be cheaper if we used zip code to zip code vs. flat-rate, but I suspect most folks don't pay priority mail costs except for more costly orders.
As we discuss this, I'd like to add that this site has really rocked it in terms of setting up the weight and DIM options, that has been super easy to add all the flat-rate options!
A handful of regular customers from the other site appear to be placing their orders on BrickOwl now (yay!). But some of these buyers reside in rural postal codes at the other end of Canada, and I suspect they are placing their orders on BrickOwl to use the flat shipping rate (which we set as an "average for all of Canada"). The result is that we currently lose about $10 on shipping for each of these orders.
Right, support for zip/postal codes would be pretty nice...
The downside to this being, if you currently have a workaround of an average shipping method, you would presumably disable this, and move to the new system. This would result in more accurate shipping for existing customers, but the potential of putting off new customers.
I would be interested to hear thoughts on this. Particularly in relation to how many shipping methods would actually need to be created by users to cover very different zip ranges?
If an user is not logged in, zone could be defaulted to 7.
Lawrence, I'm a fan of what you propose, for what it's worth, but the long-time sellers should have a lot more weight in their opinions since I'm not publicly open yet... :-)
You can use the example of "RateV4" page 8. You can submit a request with the two zip codes the zone is available in the response.
https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/2018-jan-feb-release-notes.pdf
Oh my... yes, Lawrence, PLEASE, we really need to at least consider if this is feasible down the road - else all of us will have to charge shipping rates to Hawaii just to ship down the street in order to ensure we don't lose $$.
Or go to quote only, which will kill sales for US sellers. :-(
The shipping price is calculated based on the zone, which is calculated from the customers shipping zip and the stores designated shipping zip. If the customer has a cart with an address set, this zip will be used, otherwise the customers default profile shipping address will be used. If the customer is not logged in, the zone 9 price will be shown, with some indication to show this price may decrease.
Thank you for the quick implementation. I am not able to see the zones in my existing or new USPS methods, do we have to enable it somewhere ?
Thanks,
CB
I get the error : Could not set zones for zip from USPS, please check zip code or try again later.
Zip is 800
Excellent news! Going to be a lot of work redoing shipping but worth it.
On the concern of potential customer “not logged in” many e-commerce sites have a button that prompts customer to enter “ship to” zip code in box to see actual shipping cost.
Could you incorporate that?
Having spent several hours adding shipping methods using zip code, I didnt realize "beta" meant it wasnt available to customers.
When will it be implemented?
Thanks
Seriously, I'm a flat rate guy, and this is really a bummer. Not sure what my plan is going to be at the moment.
Assuming this implements (fingers-crossed), there's NO reason you can't continue to do a flat-rate - just figure out the furthest zip code from you (e.g., Hawaii), do a few rates checks to ensure that is the highest US shipping rate, and use that as your flat rate. I'll probably do some cost vs. benefit analysis on that myself, but will almost certainly move to zone-based first class since I'll have to update everything anyway (new postage rates coming in January, assuming congress approves them).
This was pushed to beta as USPS is apparently moving to zone-based first class mail in 2019 (similar to how they offer that today for priority mail, etc.). A lot of us will input the new rates and zones using our source shipping zone to try to get shipping cheaper for folks in our own and nearby zones to be continually competitive.
I'm actually pretty excited about it - it's not the funnest to input, obviously, but someone is bound to share their tables here in BO with other sellers (I will when I put mine in, if someone else hadn't already) and having zone-based rates will allow us to offer cheaper shipping to some buyers, despite the forthcoming postage increases.
Cheaper shipping = more orders! :-)
I'm sure this has to do with $$ in some way (though I'm all for lower postal costs for closer deliveries, that is just common sense). Our postal service is chronically billions over budget each year, due to:
a) the older (long defunct) pension system which pays people the rest of the lives upon retirement a percentage of their original salary,
b) Congressional approval to raise the cost of the first class postage (despite all the budgetary shortfalls, our lawmakers are infamous for not wanting to raise postal rates in any meaningful way, which is rather silly IMHO. They allowed a temporary increase at one point, but despite being billions over budget, they then pulled the increase back as planned), and
c) There is also the impact of international postal agreements (where the US does not charge to deliver a package from any other country locally, but is handling the local delivery) - I totally support this, to be clear, but when local costs in-hand are not covering the international deliveries (e.g., free trade, which I also 100% support), you need to raise other costs to cover these, which is definitely a see b), above. :-)
Just sharing for the curious!
> Us Americans do like to overcomplicate certain things! ;-)
>
> I'm sure this has to do with $$ in some way (though I'm all for lower postal costs for closer deliveries, that is just common sense). Our postal service is chronically billions over budget each year, due to:
>
> a) the older (long defunct) pension system which pays people the rest of the lives upon retirement a percentage of their original salary,
>
> b) Congressional approval to raise the cost of the first class postage (despite all the budgetary shortfalls, our lawmakers are infamous for not wanting to raise postal rates in any meaningful way, which is rather silly IMHO. They allowed a temporary increase at one point, but despite being billions over budget, they then pulled the increase back as planned), and
>
> c) There is also the impact of international postal agreements (where the US does not charge to deliver a package from any other country locally, but is handling the local delivery) - I totally support this, to be clear, but when local costs in-hand are not covering the international deliveries (e.g., free trade, which I also 100% support), you need to raise other costs to cover these, which is definitely a see b), above. :-)
>
> Just sharing for the curious!
Add item d)
USPS is subsidizing Amazon delivery’s loosing $millions per year. Actually it is quite ridiculous our local post lady has a smallish car, yet delivers HUGE (and heavy) amazon orders. Whilst UPS show up with padded envelopes. Something we fund thru our taxes. How did this happen?
> Us Americans do like to overcomplicate certain things! ;-)
>
> I'm sure this has to do with $$ in some way (though I'm all for lower postal costs for closer deliveries, that is just common sense). Our postal service is chronically billions over budget each year, due to:
>
> Just sharing for the curious!
Also ever wondered how some eBay sellers can sell something for $2 or less including free shipping from China... and make a profit? Yet the packages have postage printed with USPS tracking from China ?
Yes, that was what I was talking about in one of my points - it's a bit crazy. While that works both ways, since Chinese postage is so much cheaper than ours, it definitely does not favor our direction shipping there. That gets into the international postage agreements, which I won't pretend to understand. :-)
The Amazon thing is a bit tricky: Amazon (plus other services that get no mention, such as all of us here on BO, eBay, stamps.com, and other major ecommerce sites) all negotiated together the "big guns" a special business rate with USPS. So we benefit from that too (the commercial rate we get if you ship through PayPal, as an example). Amazon is of course a MAJOR user of that more so than many of us (or we'd all be way richer <s>).
Conversely, I've also seen metrics that show Amazon, stamps.com, and other major ecommerce retailers may very well have saved the USPS (since congress won't raise postal costs) during this time of moving to digital "letters" via email.
The last two US postmasters general have themselves said the ecommerce contracts have saved them yet also is TOO good of a deal for the retailers such as Amazon and others, so no argument there. But like most things, it's a mixed bag of gray. :-)
I (just personal opinion) think it's just one of those things where we have to somehow keep USPS competitive with UPS and FedEx, yet convince our lawmakers to allow price increases (regular postage, contract renegotiations for ecommerce packages which includes Amazon, us, stamps.com, all of it) to get them more in the black until the pensions errr fade away naturally in another few decades (newer USPS employees are now 401k vs "let's pay you the rest of your life", which honestly, I never understood <s>).
I think really we (as a country, not us personally of course) simply did not see or chose not to see the impact of the digital age combined with massive ecommerce shifts on our USPS, combined with not properly renegotiating contracts, combined with a lack of revitalization of USPS in new directions (such as improving their competition with UPS and FedEx). I see USPS as critical infrastructure, in many ways.
Again, this is all just my respectful opinion, I've always found this topic interesting! :-)
Good and valid points. USPS also suffers from “governmentalism” ... even tho they are one of very few valid and constitutional functions of federal government... very inefficient and disorganized.
The number of rate bands is absurd, now with bands in first class as well, with literally a penny or two difference between some.
The rate book is 70 + pages, I honestly don’t think they could have made it any more complex!