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2 part ? on shipping with drop shippers


daluty

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Hi all,

 

Here is a 2 part question on using drop shippers to supply my orders from an E-commerce site.

 

1. Say you set up a site offering camping gear. A customer orders 1 tent, a cook set, and binoculars. How do I handle the shipping logistics of this order?? (the tent comes from drop shipper "A" in New York, and the cook set comes from drop shipper "B" in California, the binoculars come from shipper "C" in Texas) When I send the shippers the order info, the customers order will be coming from seperate locations and in seperate boxes, so how do I do this without killing my self with the shipping costs?

 

My problem is that the many suppliers I can find only supply a few items from a niche market. I would want to buid my site to offer the a-z variety of associated items of that niche.

 

2. is OsCommerce capable figuring the shipping costs of multiple "shipped from" and "shipped to" addresses?

 

Thanks,

Rob

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hi all,

 

Here is a 2 part question on using drop shippers to supply my orders from an  E-commerce site.

 

1.  Say you set up a site offering camping gear.  A customer orders 1 tent, a cook set, and binoculars.  How do I handle the shipping logistics of this order?? (the tent comes from drop shipper "A" in New York, and the cook set comes from drop shipper "B" in California, the binoculars come from shipper "C" in Texas)  When I send the shippers the order info, the customers order will be coming from seperate locations and in seperate boxes, so how do I do this without killing my self with the shipping costs?

 

My problem is that the many suppliers I can find only supply a few items from a niche market.  I would want to buid my site to offer the a-z variety of associated items of that niche.

 

2.  is OsCommerce capable figuring the shipping costs of multiple "shipped from" and "shipped to" addresses?

 

Thanks,

Rob

 

Well Rob, you are right about the shipping issues. First off, you have to determine your product profit margin and what you need to make (not including shipping). Then you need to pad it slightly in the price of the product for shipping (a little more if the product specs are heavy or oversized). Then you need to establish your shipping rates on your site. Ours states that any order under $100 automatically gets charged 19.99 shipping. Even if the item is only $2.00, they pay the $19.99 shipping. This may seem rediculous, but customers almost ALWAYS order the $100. You have to cover yourself with the smaller orders for when you get dinged the higher shipping charges and have to eat the difference. Also, make sure that you are negotiating a big enough price drop with your suppliers to get yourself a big mark-up on the item in the first place.

 

Don't start too big. Start with grouped items that your different sources DO carry. With source #1, start with their camping supplies. Maybe source 2 doesn't carry camping supplies, but carries an un-related items from source 1......making sense? You probably don't have the strength or the resources to start out as an Online Sears or Dunhams, so don't try to be bigger than what you are. There is no problem with specializing in certain areas.

 

Problem #2

I can't answer that. That is for a PHP scripter. I'm sure it could be done, but for the customer's sake, make sure they only see one shipping charge.

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Thanks for the reply, David.

 

I think I may not have to worry about this though after all. I think I found a supplier that has the full line of merch that I want to offer. This will make things quite a bit easier.

 

Thanks,

Rob

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