Expedited Shipping to auto select rather than Free Shipping method

techtoys2go.com · #1 02-20-2011, 05:03 PM

Sorry if this has already been answered, I did a search and found no solution.

The title basically says it all. I offer free international surface shipping for those customers who have more time than money, but I don't want ecwid to automatically choose this method of shipping by default. I am trying to have ecwid automatically choose the expedited courier methods and have the free shipping as an option that the customer must manually change to get. I thought ecwid was supposed to follow the list from top to bottom, choosing the first valid shipping method and not necessarily the cheapest. Or is it only within each shipping method that the top down selection process works?

I have put the free shipping at the bottom of my list but it always gets selected automatically by ecwid, with the expedited method coming up as the option. This is the exact opposite of what I need. Help! :P

Eugene Rimmer · #2 02-22-2011, 02:28 PM

Currently Ecwid automatically selects the cheapest shipping method by default.
This is what in our experience most customers do most of the time. The lowest shipping price is the most appealing one usually. When a customer sees a shipping estimate on the bag page, without important details like carrier name and the service included, s/he expects some possibly low price, and the higher shipping cost can possibly scare your customer off. So we usually show the cheapest shipping we could find.

However, we understand the importance of being able to set the recommended default method. To get this feature implemented sooner, you could vote for this idea: http://ideas.ecwid.com/forums/22031-...

techtoys2go.com · #3 02-22-2011, 02:50 PM

already voted... but this seems like it would be a VERY easy code change to make this possible. You already have the mechanisms in place. What kind of fee would we be looking at in order to make this custom change? Thanks.

Perhaps those people that voted for this idea might contribute a few bucks to make this happen faster. Waiting to here back about the fee first.

Qetzal · #4 02-22-2011, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxwebb

already voted... but this seems like it would be a VERY easy code change to make this possible. You already have the mechanisms in place. What kind of fee would we be looking at in order to make this custom change? Thanks.

Perhaps those people that voted for this idea might contribute a few bucks to make this happen faster. Waiting to here back about the fee first.

Well, it isn't a "very easy change", unfortunately. Let's imagine, we want to implement this feature. The following questions arise: how should we allow customers to select the default shipping method? What if we set the "A" method to be default, but it isn't available? Should we allow setting the default shipping method for domestic and international customers separately? What about parcels with different weight: should we set the default shipping methods depending on the total weight? Etc, etc.

It is easy to implement this feature to solve one particular need. However, Ecwid is used by many merchants, so we need to be sure that if implemented the feature is 1) perfect 2) easy to use 3) usable.

techtoys2go.com · #5 02-22-2011, 07:01 PM

hmmm, perhaps I didn't fully think it through, but I assumed that it would work like a flow chart, with ecwid selecting the first valid shipping method in the list that we right now already can change the order of...

Qetzal · #6 02-24-2011, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxwebb

hmmm, perhaps I didn't fully think it through, but I assumed that it would work like a flow chart, with ecwid selecting the first valid shipping method in the list that we right now already can change the order of...

Hmm, the problem is that Ecwid displays shipping methods from different carriers in separate tabs. So you cannot just put the "U.S.P.S. First-Class" method before the "UPS Ground" one using the existing design. It would be required to create a new page where all enabled shipping methods would be shown at the same time. However this page will make the whole shipping set-up more complex.

So as you see, there is no easy solution, unfortunately.

techtoys2go.com · #7 02-24-2011, 08:36 PM

"you cannot just put the "U.S.P.S. First-Class" method before the "UPS Ground" one using the existing design"

Perhaps I am not understanding your meaning, but I can do that without any problems. The problem is that ecwid does not respect the order that I put my shipping methods in, but simply goes with the cheapest method. Let me clarify that I am using the user-defined methods for shipping, NOT carrier calculated where you can NOT organize your shipping order. Are we talking about the same thing? Is there any work-around I can do?

Qetzal · #8 02-25-2011, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxwebb

"you cannot just put the "U.S.P.S. First-Class" method before the "UPS Ground" one using the existing design"

Perhaps I am not understanding your meaning, but I can do that without any problems. The problem is that ecwid does not respect the order that I put my shipping methods in, but simply goes with the cheapest method. Let me clarify that I am using the user-defined methods for shipping, NOT carrier calculated where you can NOT organize your shipping order. Are we talking about the same thing? Is there any work-around I can do?

Yes, it works for the user-defined shipping methods. However the "default shipping method" feature should work with all methods: user-defined and carrier-calculated ones.

Unfortunately the only way is to vote for the idea and wait till we implement it.

techtoys2go.com · #9 02-26-2011, 02:23 PM

"Yes, it works for the user-defined shipping methods"

What works? Being able to select the order in which ecwid chooses shipping methods for user-defined shipping methods? Because I use user-defined shipping methods and I can NOT make ecwid stop choosing the free shipping option by default. It is the LAST tab in my list, but is selected FIRST every time. Is there broken functionality here or am I just really not understanding you?

Qetzal · #10 02-28-2011, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxwebb

"Yes, it works for the user-defined shipping methods"

What works? Being able to select the order in which ecwid chooses shipping methods for user-defined shipping methods? Because I use user-defined shipping methods and I can NOT make ecwid stop choosing the free shipping option by default. It is the LAST tab in my list, but is selected FIRST every time. Is there broken functionality here or am I just really not understanding you?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I mean, that Ecwid actually shows user-defined methods on one page, so it will be possible to sort them there. However the carrier-calculated methods are shown on separate tabs. So it would be quite complex to create a feature which will allow to sort them.

At this moment the default shipping method is always the cheapest one.