Shipping: May 2008 Archives

Do you experience an occasional order having the wrong shipping method applied? Maybe a few orders came in with a shipping quote for "Standard" that should have been quoted with "UPS Ground"? There are quite few things that can cause this - shipping algorithms are complicated after all.

To start troubleshooting, begin with the ship to address on the order. At least half of all shipping quotes gone slaunchways are due to the State and/or Provence being borked. Does the ship to state on the order show the states' two letter code (CA) or is it typed out full (California)? If it's typed out, that is a problem. The ProStores system requires the two letter code for a state or Provence in any address — seems logical, since that's what all other systems require.

The frustrating part is the default checkout templates in your store use an input box for state. In this input box, your shopper can type up to 10 characters. Well, that's just silly — it's a problem waiting to happen. Here is how you can change that silly input box into a select box that will force the correct two letter code.

In your "New Customer Checkout" template, find this code snippet in the source code:

<ss:edit source="$customer.state" size=10/>

Replace it with this:

<ss:select name="$customer.state" source="$system.states('*')"> 
	<option value="Select">Select</option> 
</ss:select>

Almost done. Now, you will need to edit all the other checkout templates too — and the select name you must use changes depending on the template. The rest of the select code stays the same — you just need to change the $customer.state value in the name to something else on a few other templates.

For Ship To and Ship To Gift templates use:

name="$address.state"

For Anonymous checkout templates use:

name="$invoice.billToState"

Problem solved. Now, your shopper can easily select the appropriate State or Provence from an easy select menu without having to type anything. Thus, removing the opportunity for typing error. You're welcome.