Commerce shipping rates needs improvement

[EricGagne]

Hello again.

I don't like the way shipping rates work in Commerce.  I find it counter intuitive and its current limitations and complexity makes it hardly usable.    It does not make sense to me that I should create a shipping rate and then choose which products it is available for.   It does not make sens because the rates work with From/To ranges of weights or number of items but that makes absolutely no sense if you want to work with number of item because, for example,  a T-Shirt would cost much more to ship than a sticker.

This means that if I sell t-shirts and stickers (which is my case as you might have guessed), I need to create two shipping rates, both callled Canada Post, it's the only shipping method I use so I have to both the same name, then assign one to the T-Shirt product and the other one to the stickers product.

It would make more sense to me to have a Shipping Method configuration where I would create one entry per carrier (Canada Post, Fedex, Purolator, etc), create the shipping rates rules in the product itself and then assign a shipping method to each shipping rate.

Another problem is that it's not possible to enter a fix rate per unit.  I charge 5$+tax to ship a t-shirt, that is what is costs me and I don't care how many one might buy, it will still be 5$+tax per t-shirt.   I cannot configure this in Commerce because it only works by From/To ranges so the only way for me to do this is creating multiple rules as;

From 1 to 1; 5$
From 2 to 2: 10$
From 3 to 3: 15$
From 4 to 4: 20$
etc.

There is no way for me to know in advance what is the maximum number of t-shirt a person could put in his cart.  For all I know, one could place an order for a large group of people and buy 100 of them, or maybe more.   So how much time am I supposed to spend creating rules and how many of them an I supposed to create when all I really need is to tell Commerce that I charge 5$ per t-shirt. 

Another problem that this from/to range creates is if I don't end my list of rules with an unlimited "to" value, Commerce will not be able to calculate the shipping if an order falls outside of the rules I have set and it will end up charging.............................0$ for shipping.  This is in my opinion of big flaw in the system, Commerce cannot "decide" to charge nothing for shipping just because it does know how much to charge.  If there is no rule that allows it to calculate the shipping, it should put the order on hold and allow the administrator to review it.   Commerce cannot accept an orrder and payment that would en up costing me a fortune in shipping from my own pocket.

I bought Commerce this morning and with the shipping rates problems and limitations, and the tax issues that I brought up in a previous topic, I am at a point where I am going to try and get a refund for it because it will make managing my store so complicated I might as well do it manually and save the price of Commerce and the renewals.

[Tracy Perry]

Yes, I've noticed the same thing.  It almost appears that Commerce was built for IPS use and then some basics "rolled in" for resale as a commerce app.  It's not really that friendly towards actual physical items in a lot of ways. 

And why should I have to see "Hosting" in the ACP as an option - I don't offer that.

[Mark]

Hi @EricGagne,

Thanks for taking the time to post this - I'm really pleased to hear about Commerce being used in this way.

I'm just trying to understand exactly how you want this to work - so you charge $5 per T-Shirt no matter how many? And what do you charge for stickers? How about if I order say, 2 T-Shirts and 1 sticker, what would you want the shipping charge to be?

If you charge $5 per T-Shirt to ship no matter what, and that is the only shipping method you offer, couldn't you just increase the price by $5 and make shipping free?

[EricGagne]

Hello @Mark

You are giving me stuff to think about.  I was so caught in trying to set this up, it had not crossed my mind that someone could by t-shirts and stickers on the same order.  In this case I would obviously put the stickers in the same package.

I think I may have to change my approach and do shipping rates differently.

 

[EricGagne]

@Mark

I tried setting up my store to include the shipping in the prices but there is a problem here.   I need to set the products as "Physical" to make sure that the user enters a shipping addres but if I do not have a Shipping Rate assigned to the product, an error is displayed during checkout saying the product cannot be shipped to the address.

So then I tried to create a shipping with no actual rates in it but the form forces us to fill in both the Name and Delivery Estimates which are displayed in the checkout screen.  I can make this work and figure out something to put in those fields so it would not look too stupid but regardless, the user now needs to select that shipping method in order to be able to continue to the next step.

I am sorry to say but all these small annoyances with shipping rates and tax rates for both end users and administrators make Commerce look like a cheap product that in no way is worth $100.00 up front and $35.00 renewal twice a year.

I purchased it yesterday and honestly, I deeply regret it because I feel like I have been ripped.  I know this is harsh and I apologize for it but it is frustrating to buy what you expect to be an online store and end up with a cheap gimmick that cannot properly do the most basic things in running a store.

Commerce and Nexus have always been only good enough to sell forum subscriptions and even then, the taxes would be an issue.  I think Invision needs to step up and make it really capable of handling the selling of physical items or remove that feature from it and sell it just what it is, a module to sell forum subscriptions.

And Mark, please do not take my comments personally, it just so happened that you are the one who answered my orignal post but my criticism is about the product, not about your reply

[Mark]

If you want to go for the approach of adding $5 to the product and making shipping free - it is possible to can create a "Free Shipping" shipping rate. Enter whatever name and delivery estimate is appropriate (you could call it "Canada Post" so customers know that's how it's coming, or just enter "Free Shipping") and then in the rates table, check the "Any value" checkboxes for both minimum and maximum and enter the price as 0. So you're saying "Between any value and any value the price is $0."

If you'd prefer to open a support request, our team can definitely assist you in getting it set up how you'd like (mention this topic). It sounds like you might just need some help with the setup - I know, due to the complexity, the interface can be a little confusing - if you have any ideas on how we could make it better, I'd love to hear what you think would work.

[EricGagne]

Hello @Mark

This is exactly what I did.  The only problem with this setup is that the end user needs to choose this shipping to continue the checkout process.  It's a very little extra step but it's confusing to some users.  They don't realize they have to do this and they don't know know why they can't continue to the next step

[Mark]

You're right - that would be better if it auto-selected one. I'll get that fixed