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    Shipping Options Offered are too Pricey

    A customer orders 250 units of a part number that costs $1.75 then went to checkout and was offered these shipping options:

    FedEx 1DayŽ Freight $2,463.14
    FedEx 2DayŽ Freight $2,024.06
    FedEx 3DayŽ Freight $1,881.29

    Of course he did not order but started a chat with the store owner.

    The part number has a shipping weight of one pound even though the part itself weighs less but they don't like to use shipping weights of less than one pound. I'm sure 250 units of these little parts in a few boxes would not weigh 250 pounds.

    It was suggested that Miva treated the order like a freight order since it would have calculated out to be 250 pounds for 250 part numbers at one pound per.

    I went to a competitors www site and made the same order of 250 units, same weight (1 lb) shipped to the same address/zip code and their shipping was:

    3-5 business days - $130.86
    2nd business day - $324.00
    Next business day by 3:00 PM - $966.97
    Next business day by 10:30 AM - $1,076.95
    Next business day by 8:30 AM - $1,329.12

    In this store of 40,000 part numbers there are thousands of inexpensive lightweight part numbers where if somebody orders hundreds the offered shipping options will make then run away fast.

    In our store why were only FedEx freight options offered and not the cheaper options (I guess) USPS or UPS like the competitor?

    Even the Next business day offerings on the competitor site are hundreds of dollars cheaper than what Miva offered - why is that?

    What adjustment do we need to make to have Miva offer the non freight option on heavy orders?

    Why do you think the Next business day (if that's FedEx) offered on the competitor is so much cheaper than what Miva offered?

    Is there some other way to deal with these kinds of large in quantity but small in weight orders?

    We need ideas that will work for thousands of part numbers - not just some part numbers.



    Last edited by joseibarra; 01-16-20, 07:23 AM.

    #2
    You mentioned that "they don't like to use shipping weights of less than one pound." Why not? If the store uses the product's actual weight, will that fix the problem?
    Kent Multer
    Magic Metal Productions
    http://TheMagicM.com
    * Web developer/designer
    * E-commerce and Miva
    * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

    Comment


      #3
      The store owner says that there was a time when he thinks there was a problem with UPS shipping and they were losing money on shipping - but that problem may have been fixed (a UPS problem - not a Miva problem).

      To counteract that he wanted to make all the products (even small single items that might weigh 0.25 lb) one pound shipping weight.

      He says that if you take a 0.25 pound part and put it in a box with a label and tape and it weighs less than a pound UPS and FedEx will charge you for one pound anyway and also round up weights to one pound if it weighs less.

      He sells a lot of little parts - sometimes just one or two of something small... maybe a cable that weighs 0.50 pounds and cost $2.50 but the shipping is $10.00 for the two dollar part when you jack up the weight to one pound. Shoppers might then maybe abandon their cart. He thinks this happens a lot becausee shipping is too high. He isn't Amazon so he can't offer everybody free shipping.

      If a customer buys 250 of a small part and those 250 will all fit in one or two boxes does Miva think there are going to be 250 boxes that weigh one pound each or there is one 250 pound box and is that why Miva only offered freight or LTL (Less than truckload) shipping? If that's what Miva thinks about this little one item, Miva is not thinking right and how can we change it? At 250 part numbers in 250 boxes does Miva automatically switch to LTL shipping? Those 250 parts will easily fit in two boxes of 30 pounds each. He lost the order and thinks he loses lots of orders because shipping is too high.

      But some orders are for one big and heavy thing or a couple big and heavy things. If it ships on a pallet he adds 40 pounds of pallet weight to the shipping weight.

      He asks if there was a way to see abandoned carts instead of just deleting them (one a week he does this) he could look at the items in the abandoned cart and maybe decide if the shopper abandoned because the shipping was too high. Where can he go in Miva to see abandoned carts?

      The store sends emails on abandoned carts too - where can he go in Miva to see the report of abandoned cart emails that get sent?

      If shoppers are abandoning carts in large numbers and it looks like it is because the shipping is outrageous and if he can confirm the UPS side of things is fixed he might want to back off the idea of making everything weigh one pound shipping.
      Last edited by joseibarra; 01-16-20, 08:41 AM.

      Comment


        #4
        I think that, if a customer checks out with less than 1 pound of items in their cart, and Fedex's minimum is 1 pound, the Fedex shipping module will automatically charge the customer for shipping 1 pound. So there's no need to actually set all product weights to at least 1 pound. I haven't worked with Fedex lately, so I'm not 100% sure about that; but it should be easy enough to verify.
        Kent Multer
        Magic Metal Productions
        http://TheMagicM.com
        * Web developer/designer
        * E-commerce and Miva
        * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
        http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

        Comment


          #5
          Miva only "thinks" what its told to. The main issue you are having is caused by not giving Miva the "correct" information. There are a myrid of shipping rules that can help you define to Miva what is actually happening. (And no, outside of other shipping rules, if you have 250 1lb items, Miva sends just a total weight of 250 to the shipping modules.)

          That being said, dealing with the shipping rules can be cumbersome at best. You might be better off getting a developer to help you assess how you could dynamically configure Miva to get better info to the Shipping modules.

          And as Kent says, just putting in the correct weight will probably get your shipping costs down to more reasonable levels.
          Bruce Golub
          Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

          Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
          phosphormedia.com

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by joseibarra View Post

            He asks if there was a way to see abandoned carts instead of just deleting them (one a week he does this) he could look at the items in the abandoned cart and maybe decide if the shopper abandoned because the shipping was too high. Where can he go in Miva to see abandoned carts?

            The store sends emails on abandoned carts too - where can he go in Miva to see the report of abandoned cart emails that get sent?
            I haven't played with the built-in Review Baskets module enough to give you a good answer on it.
            https://docs.miva.com/reference-guid...review-baskets

            I've used the EmporiumPlus Lost & Found Orders in the past because it would show what was in the basket. You might want to play around with the Review Baskets.

            Leslie Kirk
            Miva Certified Developer
            Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
            Previously of Webs Your Way
            (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

            Email me: [email protected]
            www.lesliekirk.com

            Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

            Comment


              #7
              I looked at the Review Baskets module (thanks for that) and will share that with the store owner for him to analyze.

              I know the store owner deletes abandoned every week so this will give hims something to look at for sure before he deletes.

              If he feels people are abandoning due to shipping charges he may have to rethink his "one pound" ideas.

              So far it is most interesting showing 12 abandoned baskets in the future with a date of 01/18/2020 (tomorrow) so it must really be smart.

              I don't see any evidence of small ticket items with big shipping charges even in the abandoned baskets of the future - they are all high ticket and heavier items.

              And it shows (this week) 116,843 abandoned by Anonymous which is supposed to mean:
              • Anonymous: The basket was created by:
              • Someone who doesn't have an account in your store, or
              • Someone who has an account, but wasn’t signed in.
              But they show nothing in the basket for those 116K entries so I think it might mean something else.

              I wonder if that means somebody just clicked the Add to Cart button but the basket is still empty... the number of items in the basket is zero. How can this be.

              I have a feeling if I open a Support ticket for an explanation or clarification they will tell me they know it's broken, it doesn't work for them either, try updating to Colossus Theme and see if it is still broken and/or I should create an entry in the Dream Features forum for somebody to get the report to actually work (this is what they usually say when I show them something broken).

              Comment


                #8
                Unless "Defer Baskets" is turned on, a basket if created every time someone/something comes to your site. So, for example a large number of baskets could be created by a single search bot since they use a unique ID for every page call.

                FYI: Your Add to Cart function should have a "No Follow" directive on them (not 100% effective, but at least google/bing will abide and that benefits your SEO by giving the SE less work to do.

                As for what support says, this may because they are not in a position to give step by step directions on how to get newer features/function into an existing framework. So long as you are using a CSSUI based set of templates, all primary features and functionality can be integrated into miva.
                Bruce Golub
                Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

                Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
                phosphormedia.com

                Comment


                  #9
                  Is the recommended setting to turn on "Defer Baskets"?

                  I searched the Miva manual for the word defer and did not get a hit so where would I find that setting (I now found it in Store Settings: as Defer Creation of Empty Baskets - still not in the Miva User Reference so there is no explanation of what it does).

                  If you were setting up a store would you enable it?

                  Can you describe and show with an example of how to add a "No Follow" directive to the Add to Cart button?

                  Thanks for the advice and guidance.

                  We are not asking Support to add new features - just fix features that don't work. We know the difference between an enhancement request and expecting an already built in feature to work and it doesn't.

                  Two examples of late:

                  1. Attributes were not displaying thumbnail images from the Prompt field like they used to in non ReadyTheme store Support: "Contact a developer" (I fixed that one)
                  2. Default Search options have no effect on SRCH page- Support: "We verified that doesn't work in Levels, contact developer or switch to Colossus"

                  Everything we find that doesn't work seems to be attributed to a "legacy" but the store has only been live 6 months.


                  Comment


                    #10
                    I believe the default is to have Defer Baskets turned on. The Setting is under Menu | Store Settings : Settings.

                    Just add rel='nofollow' to the <form> as in <form action="something" method="something" rel="nofollow">

                    Bruce Golub
                    Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

                    Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
                    phosphormedia.com

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Thanks for the help so far (gone off topic with this basket thing now).

                      Sill waiting to hear what the store owner wants to do after looking at the report and checked a second newer store (the store in this topic was an upgrade but current on Miva) and the Defer Creation was not enabled and of course has tons of empty baskets too.

                      I enabled the Defer Creation of Empty Baskets here a few days ago yet the still seem to be happening.

                      Found this topic that says Defer Creation was "fixed" in 9.13.xx

                      https://www.miva.com/forums/forum/on...-empty-baskets

                      Checking Miva Release Notes for 9.13.xx:
                      • New store-level setting “Defer Creation of Empty Baskets” delays creation of basket records until a shopper logs in to a customer account or adds an item to their basket, reducing database overhead and the number of empty baskets.

                      Of course we are all on 9.14.00 and have 100K+ empties a week so I'm not convinced that is worked as expected - maybe somebody else can check?

                      Still getting empties with dates in the future on visitors that actually do have an account - so maybe the store owner will call these customers and tell them he checked his crystal ball and it told him they need to place an order...

                      Comment


                        #12
                        As predicted Miva Support says the Defer Creation of Empty Baskets feature doesn't work in the Levels ReadyTheme and we should hire a developer to come up with a fix. That's four for four on out of the box Levels ReadyTheme feature deficiencies we are supposed to hire someone to fix.

                        So this is another Levels feature that should work but doesn't work. What is the difference between a product enhancement request (Dream Feature) and a bug fix for a feature that doesn't work... I guess I don't understand the difference.

                        However Support was kind enough to offer a workaround (not a solution) with a Scheduled Task (cronjob) that can run periodically to keep the empty anonymous baskets at bay be deleting them on a schedule.

                        I will look into that next week.

                        Oh and the rest of the referenced Review Baskets article about how to add the Shipping Estimate feature? Support didn't even know about that article but don't follow it because it is not quite right either. But I did figure out how to get it to work and so far the store owner likes it.

                        He especially likes the feature of abandoned baskets from the future!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Sadly, everything except Shadows and Colossus have been religated to Legacy status. That pretty much means no updates or fixes unless its a security issue. Then if a fix is released you (or your developer) will need to make the updates. Although the fixes are being placed on GitHub, I really like the old format of providing updates (https://www.miva.com/template-changes) but those too are not for each ReadyTheme.
                          Leslie Kirk
                          Miva Certified Developer
                          Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                          Previously of Webs Your Way
                          (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                          Email me: [email protected]
                          www.lesliekirk.com

                          Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                          Comment

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