Just use the shipping rate web service of your client's shipping carrier why border building a custom shipping rate calculator On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Angelo Zanetti <angelo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > Thanks guys, yes in general we will go with a lookup for each country, it > wont be accurate but in future we can build rates for each province / state > for each country which an admin would have to complete for each product > (time consuming) but for now the solution will work. > > Thanks for the responses and thoughts, they are much appreciated. > > I see the UPS class is also quite interesting but its only if you using > them > :) > > Cheers > Angelo > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jochem Maas [mailto:jochem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: 19 January 2010 04:53 AM > To: Angelo Zanetti > Cc: 'php-general' > Subject: Re: integrating shipping with shopping cart site - OT > > Op 1/18/10 10:47 AM, Angelo Zanetti schreef: > > Hi all, > > > > We are about to start a new project. Custom written shopping cart - quite > > simple actually. However we have a concern when it comes to calculating > the > > shipping cost for an order. > > > > For each product we can determine the base cost based on weight, > therefore > > we can determine the total weight of an order. > > > > However we are struggling to determine how to calculate the shipping > based > > on where the delivery is going. > > > > In terms of DB and PHP would the best way to calculate it be done by > having > > a list of countries to ship to and a rate for each? Then you can apply > the > > rate to the current order (calculate according to the order weight). > > > > Problems arise when shipping to different parts of a country EG: > > > > New York vs California (quite far apart). Perhaps we should have a list > of > > cities but that could be massive? > > > > I know there is a PHP class / system that integrates with UPS but I don't > > think the client is going to use UPS. > > > > Perhaps you can tell me how you have handled this issue in the past. > > > > Apologies if it is slightly off topic but it does still relate to PHP > > indirectly. > > I'd start with defining shippingcost 'sets', each defining a number of > costs by weight bands, some 'table defs': > > set: > --------- > id name > > set_bands: > ---------- > set_id upper_weight cost > > > then it would be a case of linking (many-to-many relation) 'regions' to > sets, > if you approach this with a tree of regions you can effectively set values > at > a continent, country, state/province level ... as such you would only need > to > relate a 'shippingcostset' to a state if the shippingcosts are different to > the given country's shippingcosts. > > world > - north america > - california > - south america > - europe > - france > - UK > > then your left with the problem of determining the smallest defined region > a > given > address physically falls into .. using geo-spatial magic in the DB would be > one > way to do it. > > this is a hard problem (unless, maybe, the client is willing to sacrifice > precision > and instead using highly averaged shipping cost definitions to cover the > real differences > in costs - i.e. a fixed fee for all of europe, whereby such fee is just > above the > average real cost the client pays for shipping). > > my guess would be that building such a thing is hard, and would take lots > of > time ... best bet is to hook into the webservice of whatever shipping > company the > client intends to use ... even if you have to build your end of the > webservice from > scratch it will be many factors less hard that building a user-manageable, > shipping cost > algorythm. > > - sorry it's all a bit vague, I'm very tired :) my eyes are starting to > bleed. > > > > > > Thanks in advance. > > Angelo > > > > > > http://www.wapit.co.za > > http://www.elemental.co.za > > > > > > > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > >
