[SOLVED]Shipping - all wrong - current version of Prestashop

[skylark167]

Hi

 

The shipping/carrier/product is really really confusing, and not working properly. I installed Prestashop just a day or so ago.

 

What I require is, out of various carriers I have included, the best carriers to be shown on quick-order page who meet the best requirements of the total order, taking into consideration both weight of parcel and dimensions - whether it be one item or eg 5 items of varying dimensions/weight (I am just using this as a scenario). Should Prestashop be able to do this? I would have thought it should somehow work, as dimensions and weight are included when a product is added, and there would be no need for this otherwise.

 

At the moment I am getting Free shipping when the customer reaches the quick-order page, and about 3+ carriers below in the Delivery Methods section of the page - which would be wrong for that product as being best value carrier. Apart from that error they are also showing "free", when in fact they are not. I haven't included a free shipment carrier.

 

Can someone provide a clear instruction how to set this up properly, in the latest version of Prestashop, if the above scenario should be possible.

 

I live in UK, and have been adding carriers as eg;

 

Royal Mail First Class Large Letter 0 to 100g

Royal Mail First Class Large Letter 101g t0 250g

etc

 

and then completing the qualifying information in the various places required in Prestashop (or so I think).

 

I am using kg and cm if that makes any difference.

 

Thanks - if you want to see url - www.welshspitfire.org/museumshop/. It is in sandbox mode (though that's not working either yet).

Edited August 19, 2013 by PascalVG (see edit history)

[PascalVG]

Hi skylark,

You said you have free shipping, although not had the intention to make it free.

I think the problem is here that there are small 'gaps' in your ranges.

In your example you write

Royal Mail First Class Large Letter 0 to 100g

Royal Mail First Class Large Letter 101g t0 250g

 

Problem here is in the end value of step 1 must be the SAME as the begin value of step 2. Why: The end value of steps are EXCLUSIVE) See tiny letters on the screen saying so.

So in this case 100 itself is not defined. So if your product sums up to 100, it's undefined, and the program takes this as a 0 (zero), which translates then to Free... :-(

 

So to fix the free shipping, check your begin and end values of your steps, and make them the same. This will probably be the culprit here. If not, we have to look again at your settings, but try this first.

 

About the best carrier ONLY to show, I don't believe Prestashop does that (at this moment??). It's the customer who can choose which carrier of the available ones for his order will be chosen. This is probably done, as some carriers may be cheaper, but not necessarily faster, so by giving them the choice which suits the customer best, is probably the 'best' option here...

 

My 2 cents,

pascal

[skylark167]

Hi Pascal - thanks for this. Does Prestashop take into consideration the products that it is shipping, ie dimensions wise? So, will it look at the biggest items in the package size wise, and the weight of all items and then make a decision as to which to make default? Its difficult for the shop owner to make one carrier/range default as he doesn't know in advance what items the customer will be buying.

 

Do I need to complete price ranges if I am not delivering based on price - Royal Mail deliver based on dimensions and weight taken into joint consideration? Is there a video made of someone creating varied carriers with multiple ranges that you know of fir 1.5?

 

I will alter details as you mentioned, to see if it works better.

 

Thanks

Edited August 17, 2013 by skylark167 (see edit history)

[skylark167]

OK - so, when choosing the product carriers in the product section, do I just select the carriers that would carry one of that particular item? Or all the ones that would take that size/weight even when sending a bigger quantity? Obviously you would miss carriers out if the weight/dimension of carrier was too small for that carrier to consider taking that item.

 

Thanks

[skylark167]

Hi - its still not working properly. Is there a kind person out there who'd have a look at my settings in BO if I PM them with the details. I've removed the shipping details and inserted them several times now, and its still not working. I've only got Royal Mail, in 10 different forms of carriage as above for different weight/dimensions all going to the one UK zone.

 

Thanks

[PascalVG]

Hi Skylark,

 

First of all, if you want to specify per product which carrier will take it, then select ALL carriers that will take at least one of these products. So if the customer select one of them, it will be able to choose these carriers.

This known, you can specify per carrier the weight range that they accept.

For example:

Carrier 1 takes products up to 2 kg

Carrier 2 takes products up to 10 kg

Carrier 3 takes products from 10k up to 50 kg

 

Say a product weighs 1 kg

Buying one of the products, the checkout (should) show(s) Carrier1 and Carrier2, each with their price to pay, so that the customer can choose Carrier 1 or Carrier2 himself, dependent on the price.

Carrier 3 isn't shown, as it doesn't ship below 10 kg

 

 

Buying three of the products, the checkout (should) show(s) Carrier2 only, showing the price to pay. Carrier1 is not shown, as it's too heavy to accept for them, Carrier3 is not shown, as it's still below 10kg.

 

Buying twenty of the products, the checkout (should) show(s) Carrier3 only, showing the price to pay. Carrier1 and Carrier2 aren't shown, as it's too heavy for them.

 

Be careful with the 'edges'. Do you want Carrier2 accept still 10kg, then write as end value of the last step 10.001 or so, (depends a little of the decimals of your products, but 10.001 should work for most of them (up to 1 gram difference)). Then 10.000kg will be the upper limit that it still accepts.

 

I never tried myself, but I believe it doesn't take into account yet if dimensions are out of range that carriers accept in the standard shipping methods. There may very well be 3rd party shipping method modules that do just this. (Maybe ask in a new topic about this)

 

If you still want me to look at the shipping values now implemented, Email me the login/password (you can make a temporary employee with (super-)admin rights in Back Office->Administration menu if you want, and delete it afterwards)

 

Knowing now that dimensions aren't taken into account yet, please specify what you exactly want to have implemented.

 

Pascal

[PascalVG]

P.S. If all carriers take a product, you can also decide not to select any carrier at all for that product. This will be the same as selecting all of them. Maybe faster to do :-)

Then just select only for those products that are shipped by limited carriers, the desired carriers.

 

PPS. If you want, you can specify different prices for sending different countries, even for 'one carrier'. Let me know if you need this, then Ill explain more.

 

pascal

[skylark167]

Thanks for replies Pascal, I will try and sort it myself then, but if it still won't work properly, I would like to take you up on your kind offer of glancing over the BO configurations.

 

Another little problem regarding products, is the difference in the way the wording for the dimensions are portrayed - eg Royal Mail dimensions are in length, width, thickness and weight. With regards to the products, of course width and weight are self explanatory, but I have been taking it that thickness is equivalent to height, and that depth is equivalent to length? Is that right - as I guess this fact might make a difference as to whether any carriers are displayed to the customer - maybe my dimensions are not fitting into any ranges because of this.

 

Ie Royal Mail;

Length

Width

Thickness

Weight

 

Prestashop products;

Width

Height

Depth

Weight

 

Thanks - what do you think?

[PascalVG]

Hi Skylark,

 

Royal mail seems to follow the following box 'rule':

Length x width x thickness

 

Thickness is height of box, or 'thickness' of envelope.

The length is 'the longest' size of the box

the width is the 'shortest' size of the box

 

So length >= width

 

As far as I know there's no official Royal mail module that matches the Prestashop to their length and width.

So as you as you be consistent in adding your own product dimensions as length>= width, this seems to be all right.

 

(I personally would say/think that Prestashop-'Width' = Royal mail-'Length', Prestashop-'Depth' is Royal mail-'Width'. Why? As width 'feels' longer than depth, and Royal Mail says 'Length' is the longest of the two. Just my opinion though)

 

N.B. As said in previous comment, I don't believe that Prestashop checks if the dimensions of the product(s) 'fit' to the carrier's acceptable dimensions as yet in the default Carrier module. Maybe there's a 3rd party module which does that. If so, double check their 'mapping' of any width/depth/length...

 

Hope this helps,

pascal

[skylark167]

Thanks for that very clear reply Pascal.

 

After a lot of disabling and enabling different things - mainly if I remember, the shipping sort facility, swapping around my dimensions and switching to the 5 step checkout, I think its now working. I also changed the wording from Free Shipping! to £0.00, and it makes a bit more sense. I don't think the other method for checkout is working properly, which was what I started with.

 

You've been great by the way.

 

Thank you!

[stottycabanas]

Skylark, for the benefit of the wider community, could you explain what settings you have in place now to make this work.

 

Many thanks, Dave

[skylark167]

Hi - as I mentioned above, I changed the dimensions of my products around as I wasn't sure whether depth meant thickness etc, I selected the 5 step checkout instead of the default one as I couldn't get that one to work properly, for my own benefit I changed free shipping! to £0.00 within translations as I couldn't get rid of free shipping! within the default checkout - and I changed, on the Carriers page, the bottom section which now reads;

Default Carrier - Best Price

Sort - Price

Order - ascending

 

I think that's it. The biggest benefit was gained when changing to 5 step checkout - the other one isn't working properly.

 

I've just thought of something else I did, I deselected all carriers on the product page, and saved it so that Prestashop could sort out the carriers for that particular product.

 

Yep - that's it.

[PascalVG]

Skylark,

Not sure why you cannot get rid of the free shipping. If you still want me to have a quick look if I can see anything that can be the cause, PM me a login/password for an employee with Admin rights (Can be a new temporary one, See Administration Tab to create a new employee). (Please add a link to this topic in the PM, as I'm famously forgetful what it's about :-) )

 

If everything (furthermore) works ok now for you, we'll mark this topic as solved. :-)

 

Happy selling!

pascal