Confusion about FedEx shipping and Customizing shipping.

[TCVLEX]

I recently set up the online shopping cart for my website and store. I opened a ticket questioning the reason I couldn't seem to configure FedEx shipping and was told that with shopsite's new programming system I would not be able to use FedEx. I've always shipped FedEx due to better prices for smaller packages, but wasn't bothered by this and set up/familiarized myself with UPS.
Now I find recent questions about FedEx shipping. Was I incorrectly told I can't use FedEx? If so, I would like to know and the issues most likely end there.
If not, I need to set up customized UPS shipping rates for my customers. I realize UPS does not do flat rate shipping, but I would still like to offer it. I notice other sites selling similar items have UPS flat rates on their shipping pages, with ground ranging from $5.95 up to $9.95 and would like to offer the same even if it means paying the added cost myself. I've received phone calls from people complaining that shipping costs more than the couple of items they wanted to purchase and therefore they aren't going to buy from me. In one particular instance the items came to about $11 and shipping was $14.95, which lost that particular sale for my store.
For certain items I could ship through USPS, but for about 80% it must be FedEx or UPS. Most of the items I could ship via USPS are quite inexpensive, and I would just have a flat shipping cost for them through Ordering Options, but this would cause an issue when they're part of an order with items that must be shipped UPS.
I've read the forum and understand shopsite techs can customize shipping, but I'm not certain if this is the type of customization meant. I know very little about APIs and would be too afraid to venture into trying any of the changes I need on my own. Custom Shipping Add-ons looks like what I need to be exploring, but...I don't want to ruin anything.
My questions are-
Can I use FedEx with Shopsite Pro's current setup?
If not, is there a way to have shipping customized by someone on shopsite?
If so, can someone tell me the cost, if any? I would hate to hire an outside IT guy if this is something that can be taken care of by a shopsite professional.
Thanks. I hope what I wrote makes sense.

[Jim]

What version of ShopSite do you have and what is the Product level? To find that information go the the merchant interface of you ShopSite backoffice and click on the ShopSite tab at the top of the page. Down in the footer you will see something like

Code: Select all

ShopSite® Pro 11 sp1 r2 StoreID: jimsp1

paste what you find in a reply to this post.

ShopSite Pro and Manager level stores have had FedEx shipping since ShopSite 8.1. It has been upgraded as FedEx has made changes to their apis so some older versions may not still work. You an find a list of some of the fixes that have been made since the original implementation in the knowledge base at http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/search/FedEx .

If you have a Starter level store you will not have access to the Fedex shipping feature.

[TCVLEX]

Hi Jim,

Thanks. The main question appears to be Does ShopSite Pro use Web Services or Web API?

Fedex no longer issues meters, etc for API applications. So, if ShopSite Pro uses API, I will not be able to use it with Fedex. If it uses Web Services then, in theory I am ok but I then have a mysterious error message when I complete the initial configuration screen and press "proceed".

[Jim]

ShopSite uses FedEx Web Services (since about June/July 2010, v10 sp2 r1) so there should problem using it.

If you are having problems, what version of ShopSite do you have? If your store does not have v10 sp2 (or V11 ) in the version number in the footer of the store then you don't have the Fedex Web Services enabled version. There are several hosts who have never upgraded to the 10 sp2 or 11 versions and are still installing new stores using ShopSite 10 r7.2 so you really need to check and see what version you have.

If you have at least 10sp2r1 what is the error you are receiving when you try and configure FedEx and what are the exact steps you are using before you get the error?

[TCVLEX]

Sorry, I meant to put the version I use in my response: ShopSite® Pro 10 r7.4

The error is a 404 error.
"Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, support@ipage-inc.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

This happened the first time I tried to configure FedEx, which is why I opened a ticket asking what I had done wrong. As I said, I was then told I couldn't use FedEx by someone in tech support. Once I saw questions about FedEx on this forum as recently as 12/5 I decided to further investigate and perhaps try again. This time I called FedEx tech support to see if my questions could be answered.

The steps I took up to hitting "Proceed" were carefully looked over by a FedEx Tech support rep who had access to my screen. He said unless ShopSite had started using only API the error message should not occur.

I hope this helps you help me.

[Jim]

Ok, so your version is 10 r7.4. The first version that had the FedEx Web Services is 10 sp2 r1. So your store does NOT have the code for the Fedex Web Services it is using an older version of FedEx's code that is no longer work which is why you got the 404 error. Between the version that your store is running and the first version with the FedEx Web Services were 10 sp1 and 10 sp2 (both had several patch releases also). The current version of ShopSite is 11 sp1 r2 which is two major versions newer than 10sp2. So your store is 4 major versions behind.

The host where your store is located, is one of the ones that feels no need to upgrade to newer versions of ShopSite as they are released. When they don't upgrad it makes ShopSite look bad. However, there is nothing that ShopSite can do to force them to upgrade since the code is on their servers. They have access to all the releases but all we can do is request that they upgrade. The way to apply pressure on them to upgrade is to have the merchants who host with them request that they upgrade. If that does not work the best thing to do is to move to a different host.

If you do a search in the forum for "best hosts" you will find a number of posts about which hosts keep up to date with ShopSite releases and which don't and therefore get complaints because they don't.

With the current rapid change on the Internet, using software that is a couple of years old just won't cut it. Unless software is kept up to date things will fail because other parties make changes to improve there products and ShopSite must make changes to keep up with them. In the last year there have been at least 4 major parties, with which ShopSite integrates that have changed their interfaces so drastically that stores would lose functionality or stop functioning altogether if merchants had not upgraded there stores version of ShopSite, These include Google (twice), USPS, Facebook and some payment gateways.

Current versions of ShopSite work well with FedEx. So my suggestion to you is to do a search of the forum and explore other hosting options unless you can convince the company where your store is hosted to upgrade to the current version of ShopSite.

[TCVLEX]

Thanks, Jim. I guess I thought I had one of the newer versions. I was just looking on Lexiconn's page a day or two ago--I haven't been happy with my host site from the beginning. I was just dreading doing whatever needs to be done to change over, but I knew it was inevitable.

Thanks again.