HELP! Wordpress and small business shipping ala Stamps.com
 

Hey guys

I have a small business startup and my website developer built a site for me with Wordpress and WooCommerce. I have 1 product in a couple colors with shopping cart checkout.

My plan is to use USPS flat rate boxes to keep shipping easy. I can only sell domestically anyway. Plus boxes are basically free.

The developer installed a shipping plugin that interfaces and fetches rates from my Stamps.com account for USPS shipping. The plugin is $79 and is from WooForce, and it has turned out to be rubbish from the get go. WooForce has admitted they have problems and 16 e-mails later with their tech support they are debugging it as they go along; incorrect rates, box pack, you name it. My web developer wanted several hundred bucks more to configure something that should be a no-brainer as I add products and options.

With Wordpress, WooCommerce, and a Stamps.com account- can anyone recommend a no frills plugin for shipping? The goal here is to not have to copy and paste customer shipping information at 1 AM onto a shipping label or into stamps.com, but go to a dashboard and hit print.

Help!
Thanks in advance

I've done plenty of PHP work but nothing with shipping.

How is shipping determined? Are there indicators in your database?

Shouldn't flat rate boxes be "i need 1 box for this" or "i need 3 boxes" or "i need a box X size" (known costs) and then whatever is added for insurance?


Also not a fan of word press due to the myriad of security issues

Exactly. In WooCommerce you enter your product dimensions and weight. The shipping plugin app grabs that and based on the number of items in the cart calculates the box needed, then the shipping cost based on commercial rates fetched from Stamps.com (widely known shipping firm with 500k+ customers).

So the question is who has the best plug-in that is easiest to use. Because the one I have stinks.

Without looking at the plug in I can say the way it should work is hooking into USPS's API.

How well documented and how stable USPS's API / back end is will dictate how well or how poorly any plug in will work.

Shippers work on zones. They are not as granular as zip code in all aspects.

For example, if you are located in FedEx zone 1 and the product ships from zone 1 you should never pay extra for 1 day shipping as by default all zone 1 stuff will regularly deliver in 1 day regardless.

You have one product so figuring out say 6 basic ship zones and fixed cost per zone should not be a huge deal.

Mark each up 5-10% and charge a flat rate price per zone.

Some zones will cost less than what you charge, others more, end of day you should come out ahead or at worst break even. BTW, if you are not accounting for S&H either baked into shipping or broken out as a separate line item you are giving away earned income.

If you are getting upside down adjust your costs.

In my experience consumers react well to stated up front shipping costs.

The actual down to the penny cost displayed in the cart at the very last step can lead to higher cart abandonment rates.

In a nutshell, your plug in solution seems to be overkill for your current business.

Reading with interest. I'm about to embark on a wordpress based woo commerce site too.

Hi BGCarrera32,

Thanks for being a Stamps.com customer! Regarding WooCommerce, WooThemes has a direct integration - have you tested that plugin? A single site option costs $59.00 and then you must have a monthly Stamps.com subscription that costs $15.99 per month. You can get more info here:
https://www.woothemes.com/products/woocommerce-shipping-stamps/


If that doesnt work, you can import CSV files or even set up an ODBC connection with the Stamps.com Batch option (Batch is the setting inside the software that allows importing from marketplaces/carts) - if you went this route, you could eliminate the $59 plug in cost.

One item I wanted to ask is have you investigated the costs for all types of Priority Mail? Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes are often not the cheapest option to use. You may find Priority Mail Regional Rate Box A or Box B to be much cheaper. Here is a few examples:

5 lb. Package - LA to Seattle, WA (Zone 5)
$11.95 = PM Medium Flat Rate Box
$8.15 = PM Regional Rate Box A

5 lb. Package - LA to NYC (Zone 8)
$11.95 = PM Medium Flat Rate Box
$10.77 = PM Regional Rate Box A

I know car parts can be very heavy, so you probably have already investigated this. But keep Regional Rate Boxes an option for any item under 15 lbs. It is Priority Mail, so it has the same 1 to 3 day delivery option and includes tracking, insurance, etc.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks!
Eric, Stamps.com

Hi BGCarrera32,

Thanks for being a Wooforce customer!

We regret the inconvenience caused to you due to incorrect flat rates.

However, the issue is caused due to the rates generated from Stamps.com API and you will face the same issue with all plugins.
Stamps API currently returns all rates in response without considering the size of the package. We have communicated this to Stamps.com and have got an affirmative response from them acknowledging the problem.

Since, they have not provided any time-frame to correct this issue, we have developed a patch which can help you select the correct boxes and fetch the rates for a selected Flat rate box.
The link to the patch is here - Ignore the flat rates returned by Stamps which are less in size than the package requested – Support

For any issue related to rates after using the patch, you can always contact us via support.wooforce.com.

Thanks & Regards,
Ando,
Wooforce.com