Miva version and weight calculation

[pennybeads]

Hello,
I have two very different questions, I would be grateful if someone can help me.

1. I am using Miva 5.0 at the moment. I want to by the Membership SuperMod Copernicus / Miva Central but its for versions 4.x, 4.14-4.16x. is there no way i can use it with miva 5.0 ?


2. second question is regarding weight- I want the weight of the items to be calculated ( but not displayed) so when the user checksout it can calculate automatically the shipping rate. where can i enter the weight of each product manually and make it calculate the total when checkingout?

I dont know how big companies do it. How can they calculate the cartoon or pack weight for example? how can they give the precise shippign rate? any idea?

thanks!
Tommy

[wcw]

What feature in the membership module are you needing. There are other modules that insert customers into price groups.

The product weight is entered in the product edit screen for each product. Or you can import the weigth using the product flat file import.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

No, the CBS Membership SuperMod is not available for Merchant 5. However, IDS' PointTrk Module is (http://tinyurl.com/mhyh2).

By default, the weight of products is calculated for shipping use.

You enter the weights in each product when you create them (or later by editing the product.) You can also accomplish this in bulk by importing products via flat file.

Companies get accurate rates by weighing each item the wish to ship and recording the weight. Usually you weigh the product, and add a little for shipping and packing materials. This will depend on the products size and how many you can get into a single box etc.

I would strongly recommend reading the MM5 documentation:
http://docs.smallbusiness.miva.com/en-US/merchant/5/webhelp/MM5_Table_of_Contents.htm

Hello,
I have two very different questions, I would be grateful if someone can help me.

1. I am using Miva 5.0 at the moment. I want to by the Membership SuperMod Copernicus / Miva Central but its for versions 4.x, 4.14-4.16x. is there no way i can use it with miva 5.0 ?


2. second question is regarding weight- I want the weight of the items to be calculated ( but not displayed) so when the user checksout it can calculate automatically the shipping rate. where can i enter the weight of each product manually and make it calculate the total when checkingout?

I dont know how big companies do it. How can they calculate the cartoon or pack weight for example? how can they give the precise shippign rate? any idea?

thanks!
Tommy

[e-Tail Coach]

How to calculate shipping is one of the hardest parts of setting up a store. There are no easy answers, especially if your customers are going to purchase several items that can fit into one box.

I suggest that either look at your past shipment history to see what type of shipping calculation will work. Or that you put together several shipments as test shipments. I also suggest that you look at other sites similar to yours to see what they are charging and how they are calculating their shipping.

I sell dog toys, which have a large variance in weight (from a tiny toy for a little dog to a 14" hard plastic ball). I charge shipping based on order total; which is also the way most of my competitors calculate their shipping charges. I might charge a little less for the tiny toy, because I am going to make money of the shipping and charge more for the big toy because I am not going to loose a little on the shipping. Beware about charging too much for your product because if your customers find you thorough a price comparison channel they might not check your shipping rates.

Over charging on shipping can be a big cause of shipping cart abandonment -- which you certainly do not want. No matter how you calculate it sometimes, you will charge too much and sometimes you will not charge enough. Ideally, in the end you will at least over your costs.

Candy Blakeslee, eCommerce Coach

www.eTailCoach.com (http://www.eTailCoach.com)
www.BestFriendsGeneralStore.com (http://www.BestFriendsGeneralStore.com)

[pennybeads]

A couple of things:

1. As for the membership-
the IDS-POINTTRK is for miva versions 4.14 to 4.2x - you say it will work with miva 5.0 as well?

The two main functions I need are- if customer buys for more than X$ (the total of his or her orders) he/she becomes a silver/gold/platinium member and get an addintional discount, automatically, when checking out.
A second function, which is not a real must but can be nice to have, some items are available only to silver/gold/plat. members. I should mention that in our site you must log-in in order to watch the items, so it should work without a problem.

Are there any miva 5 modules to answer my needs?


2. As for the weight- yes, I did not pay attention, its in the products edit...thanks for showing me. For the moment, we charge one unique shipping rate for buyers from Italy (we are in Italy). The problem begins when users are non italians. there is to option of "charge me later" but we rather do it all live. We thought about buying the fedex module, does anyone know if it works fine?

Its not a problem for us to put the weight of each item...the problem is the packaging...especially when you do it with companies like fedex.
We want to be precise and due to the nature of our items- beads, some in packs of 20 gr, some 1 kg, some very big but light, some very small but very heavy, its hard to calculate which pack we will need..and therefore- almost impossible to know the fedex rate.

..

thanks all!
Tommy
pennybeads.com

[wcw]

The two main functions I need are- if customer buys for more than X$ (the total of his or her orders) he/she becomes a silver/gold/platinium member and get an addintional discount, automatically, when checking out.
A second function, which is not a real must but can be nice to have, some items are available only to silver/gold/plat. members.


The first function can be accomplished with the Customer and Product Admin module at
http://www.emporiumplus.com/go/wcw/PROD/1AA/1AA00055
It keeps track of order history so a customer can review their orders, see the status of their order, and re-order the same as a previous invoice. As part of the order history, it has a feature to automatically put customers into a price group as their purchase history accumulates. You can have multiple price groups and graduate the customer into the higher groups as they buy more stuff.