[ic] More shipping

[Jon]

Jim Balcom wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Oct 2002, Jon wrote:
>
> J>>continuumdata wrote:
> J>>
> J>>> I've compared IC's calculations with the UPS web site.  It's dead on for UPS
> J>>> Ground and UPS three day.  But the shipping is calculated incorrectly for
> J>>> 2nd day and Next day.  In both examples I am using the same ship to and ship
> J>>> from addresses, same weight.
> J>>>
> J>>> IC is being told to use the ups www lookup.... Any thoughts?
> J>>>
> J>>>
> J>>
> J>>    If I understand that part of shipping the query method (which is what I
> J>>think you mean by  www lookup) goes to UPS to get the shipping rate.
> J>>If that is the case then I would pay close attention to some of the options
> J>>you're selecting manually on the UPS web site.  Some of the options might
> J>>seems obvious but aren't.  For example the selection of residential address
> J>>or not and the drop off versus daily pick up options.  Look at the value
> J>>differences and I think you'll something there.  If you're talking table look up
> J>>
> J>>inside IC then there are other possibilities.
>
> I'm finding that those rate tables only change once a year - no more. It's
> much faster when one puts those rate tables on the computer and then do a
> local lookup.
>
> In addition, the rate increases are a percentage on top of the old rate.
> Therefore, I simply add on a percentage to the shipping rate in the table
> which brings it reasonably close to the current rate.
>
> Yes, both FedEx and UPS ground have a residential surcharge that they add on
> to the rate. They both also have a 'boondock' charge - the customer lives
> out where I grew up and they don't want to go there, so they charge more.
>
> I add $2.00 onto the calculated shipping charges and I call it 'shipping and
> handling'. This covers the residential charge, and the boondock charge, as
> well as boxes, tape, shipping labels, etc.
>
> Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win. It seems to come out even.
>
> I can't see slowing down the customer's order by calculating the shipping on
> each order. YMMV
>
> -= Jim =-

    I would agree with you using the look up tables with some added amount; much
faster.
And one of the other charges is a fuel surcharge which is a percentage of the total
shipping cost including things like residential and boondock delivery.  I wonder if
it is possible to do a calculation as part of the IC adder in shipping.asc.

I was really trying to give the original poster some idea as to why the values
he is seeing might be different.

Jon