how to charge shipping ecommerce site?

nethead01

nethead01

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I am building an ecommerce site for a customer I never thought about how to calculate for shipping and charge accordingly?

The site is going to be selling jewelry so most items would be small but some items will be bigger like a few lbs stones and things.

Any suggestions?
 
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Do you mean, how to implement the shipping on your site, or what to actually charge? In the latter case, I will move your thread to the "Business & Tax Advice" section, so please clarify.
 
My suggestion: Save yourself time and money. Go with a premade shopping cart system. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't already know how the wheel works.

Xcart, Pinnacle Cart, Interspire, Ecwid or something like that. Avoid cubecart, zencart, OScommerce, Magento and CMS-based carts.
 
Yeah, cant beat joomla virtuemart right?
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If it's really small light jewlery, you should go with those (I believe they are called) priority shipping boxes via USPS - my understanding is that anything that fits in the box (not matter how heavy) will ship at the same rate. And don't forget that you might need to ensure some jewelry. But you could probably get away with saying "free shipping" and just marking up your items accordingly.

But having someone pay shipping on an item that weighs less than an ounce is a waste of time in my opinion.

Most shopping cart software should have an option to set certain items to free shipping. And then a good cart software should also let you set weight and dimensions for items you want to calculate shipping for.
 
You didn't say where you are located and where will you ship. In most shopping cart scripts there are modules that you can use - flat rate, calculated by weight, UPS, USPS (the last two for USA), etc. Give us some more details.
 
misscaprice said:
Ah, excuse me, why would he want to do this?
Click to expand...

Zencart is outdated. OScommerce is a fork of zencart and is just as bad. They're both hell to modify as well.
Magento is bloated and slow. The only thing it has going for it is that it looks pretty (and everything for it is expensive?)
Cubecart is just outdated.
CMS based carts are vulnerable to exploits opened by other installed modules.
 
jazzc said:
Do you mean, how to implement the shipping on your site, or what to actually charge? In the latter case, I will move your thread to the "Business & Tax Advice" section, so please clarify.
Click to expand...

I was meaning what to charge and how to determine the rate.. I just never though about that before but I got some great answers thanks!
 
Longover said:
If it's really small light jewlery, you should go with those (I believe they are called) priority shipping boxes via USPS - my understanding is that anything that fits in the box (not matter how heavy) will ship at the same rate. And don't forget that you might need to ensure some jewelry. But you could probably get away with saying "free shipping" and just marking up your items accordingly.

But having someone pay shipping on an item that weighs less than an ounce is a waste of time in my opinion.

Most shopping cart software should have an option to set certain items to free shipping. And then a good cart software should also let you set weight and dimensions for items you want to calculate shipping for.
Click to expand...

Great answer thanks a lot!
 
You should do it depending on the cost and where you need to send them. I do this on an ecommerce site I made! The options we use are:

total > 1000$ ----> free worldwide delivery!
ship in your country -----> 15$
ship in your region (i.e. Europe)-----> 30$
ship worldwide ------> 50$

Don't over-complicate the options, keep it simple! You don't want customers to be confused!
 
Longover said:
If it's really small light jewlery, you should go with those (I believe they are called) priority shipping boxes via USPS - my understanding is that anything that fits in the box (not matter how heavy) will ship at the same rate. And don't forget that you might need to ensure some jewelry. But you could probably get away with saying "free shipping" and just marking up your items accordingly.

But having someone pay shipping on an item that weighs less than an ounce is a waste of time in my opinion.

Most shopping cart software should have an option to set certain items to free shipping. And then a good cart software should also let you set weight and dimensions for items you want to calculate shipping for.
Click to expand...


In that case mark the items up about 10 bucks and give free shipping.
 
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