Quick Shipping Cost Calculation

ttw said 1 year, 10 months ago:

My biggest question from shoppers is ‘how much is shipping?’ – can an enhancement be made to add a field in shopping cart where the shopper can just enter their zip code to quickly calculate shipping without having to add all of their information to find out how much it is going to cost to get product delivered?

DaveD said 1 year, 10 months ago:

@ttw

Great suggestion! I will get this directed to our developers for consideration. If you have any other questions or suggestions let us know.

swimsweat said 1 year, 10 months ago:

@DaveD:

This has been a popular request and has been mentioned on numerous posts. The latest response was that due to the way QSC is programmed, a shipping estimator cannot be developed that will work. I believe that this is due to the fact that a unique token is generated during the actual checkout process and that without having this token available outside the checkout process there is no way to obtain the unique information (weight, zipcode and shipping carrier/method) that such a tool requires.

Since most carts do provide such a tool I hope your developers can figure out a way to accomplish this as it really is a needed feature.

Boyzman said 1 year, 10 months ago:

Hi! I would love to see this added too. We have sent in suggestions and have seen other request in other forum topics for this feature to be added, but nothing new yet! We have several customers either call or email daily asking what the shipping will be. This would be a great new feature if GoDaddy can get it to work!

tony said 1 year, 10 months ago:

A lot of people will bounce from a site because of this. My father was looking at my site one time and said “No way, I’m not putting all my information in if I can’t see a shipping quote first.”

My reply was “Well, you don’t have to put your card in to see the rates, just your name and address” In which his response was “When I get to a site like that I’ll just leave”….Gee, thanks Dad! But at least he was telling the truth!

I suspect a lot of people are like that because I know I am too. Most sites nowadays have simple zip code shipping calculators so that is what people have come to expect.

Since shipping calculators are pretty much standard to most e-commerce sites, people feel like they are being lured into something when they don’t see one. It can make people feel uneasy about the checkout process and leave.

All my competitors have shipping calculators on their sites and I desperately want to see one on mine. QSC definitely needs this.

Customers are constantly emailing or calling me for shipping rates because they don’t want to have to put all that info in to see the rates. Some think that something is wrong and some just don’t want to be bothered with typing that much info, just to see a shipping quote.

I have to explain that they must continue on further to see the rates, assuring them that they can review the rates before finalizing the purchase.

We need a simple zip code shipping calculator!

I wouldn’t care if I could actually see my abandoned carts because I could follow up with them to see if that was the problem, but that feature is lacking too, so why force the visitors to provide all this to get a shipping rate?

Most customers expect that they should be able to see rates before then, with some sort of shipping calculator. This is an important issue that should certainly be addressed in a future update!

This is a must that needs to be fixed. You can bet it is adding to an increased number of abandoned carts, but QSC doesn’t have the functionality to let me see that information for certain….. But that’s another thread unto itself.

On another note, one time a customer complained about the rates through site surveys but based on his IP address I saw he bought anyway. I suspect he bought because he already entered all that info into the checkout and thought “The heck with it, I already got this far”

However, I think that kind of person is a rarity. Most will probably just leave the site without even looking at the rates because they don’t want to be bothered with getting that involved, just to see what your shipping rates are like.

Please send this up the ladder for serious consideration and hopefully some action.

notsheepy said 1 year, 10 months ago:

I don’t need a zip code calculator for my shipping at this point, but where I enter each new product, it asks for size, pkg and weight, but it won’t let me add the specific ship fee (I have already calculated) per item. Is there a place on my QSC product set up to do this? If not then I need to definitely add this to the mix, because I spent a lot of time with vendors gathering shipping costs!

DaveD said 1 year, 10 months ago:

@notsheepy

No, this is not something which is possible through Quick Shopping Cart at the moment. The closest that you could get with this would be to set the item to not charge for shipping and then either include the shipping cost in the cost of the product (and maybe add an “includes shipping” line to your description) or add the shipping as an Option instead if you need users to be able to select a specific shipping type. Of course this will only work if the shipping is a pre-determined flat rate for all customers; although you could possibly set up an option to differentiate between states, cities, etc.

Boyzman said 1 year, 10 months ago:

Hi DaveD! I appreciate your feedback, but unfortunately what you are suggesting would not work at all for us. We have over 7000 items and most of our orders are for multiple items – so it would not be feasible to add an option for shipping on each item because the shipping would never add up correctly. For stores that only sell a few items, your suggestion might work, but not for us.

I have submitted the suggestion of the shipping calculator several times so I hope this is something that the QSC Team is working on – if not, I hope that it something that they will work on and implement soon!

DaveD said 1 year, 10 months ago:

@Boyzman

Yes, I understand this may not work in your situation. This suggestion was intended more for notsheepy rather than as a work-around for the main issue being discussed. Thanks!

turn_it_up said 1 year, 10 months ago:

I agree a quick shipping estimate calculator would be a very functional additive to the QSC program. I hope the programers can figure out a way to integrate it into the system.

tony said 1 year, 1 month ago:

We have repeatedly requested this in multiple threads for literally years now. I have submitted it to product suggestions dozens of times during that time frame, as well as others I’m sure. It is ridiculous that this isn’t being prioritized and taken care of. Most customers will bounce before having to enter all of their billing and shipping address information, just to get a shipping quote. I constantly get emails and phone calls (daily) asking for a shipping rate, because most people think something is wrong…..that they have to get that far deep into the checkout process just to get a shipping rate. It’s a crying shame that something this crucial to helping your conversion rate goes constantly unanswered, and by unanswered I mean years without getting this addressed!

NZtoAZ said 1 year, 1 month ago:

Seeing as Tony is asking for a shipping calculator (and I agree this would be useful), I would like to add my shipping request here too (I also have asked for this option a number of times). PLEASE add the ability to offer different shipping options for different products!!! We have some items which can go flat rate and others which cannot (the ones that cannnot, require custom boxes and are too large for flat rate) I need to offer flat rate for the items which CAN go flat rate, because customers are abandoning thier carts at checkout due to the high cost of shipping these items. However, if I offer flat rate, I HAVE to offer flat rate for all items. This needs to be changed and surely wouldnt be difficult to add!

JasonP said 1 year, 1 month ago:

@tony & @NZtoAZ

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts. I understand that you have discussed this topic for some time, and I can assure you that it is presented to our Development Teams. If new information becomes available, I can assure you we will update all of the associated threads.

Jason