Connect to UPS, FedEx, USPS, and Canada Post or create custom shipping options

Properly calculate shipping costs on your ecommerce store with ProductCart's sophisticated shipping features

ProductCart allows you to build professional ecommerce stores that are at the same time powerful and easy to manage. Written entirely in Active Service Pages (ASP), our ecommerce software integrates seamlessly with your Web site and includes an intuitive, browser-based store administration area.

This page focuses on some of the features in ProductCart's powerful shipping component (click here for a complete list of features). With ProductCart your store can connect to UPS, FedEx, USPS, and Canada Post or use custom shipping options that you have created. The integration with both UPS and FedEx were officially approved by both companies.

There are a number of advanced shipping features in ProductCart:

• Tight integration with UPS and FedEx
  Show accurate shipping rates, allow your customers to track packages, validate addresses, finalize shipments and even print shipping labels, right from your ProductCart Control Panel.
  Learn more about the integration with UPS >>
• Multiple package shipments
  ProductCart can handle orders that are shipped in multiple boxes. Products flagged as oversized are by default shipped in a separate package (a product can be easily set as oversized using the Control Panel). In addition, the administrator can now set a maximum weight per package in the General Shipping Settings area. If an order exceeds that weight, the order is automatically divided over multiple packages. This reduces the changes of no rates being returned from a shipping service provide such as UPS, for instance, because the weight limit has been exceeded.
• Handling of very light products
  On a product by product basis, you can now set how many units of the products make 1 pound (or 1 Kg.). This allows the system to properly calculate shipping charges when shipping extremely light products (e.g. business cards, pins, buttons, electrical parts, etc.). These are products that are typically ordered in large quantities. This feature works extremely well when combined with the Product-specific quantity validation feature (e.g. you need to purchase at least 250 business cards).
• Show special shipping instructions
  On the shipping service selection page, you can now show customers special instructions or other shipment-related information.
• Preview shipping rates before even starting the checkout process. Customers can enter their delivery address and have shipping charges nicely displayed in a pop-up window, before registering with the store or logging into their account.

• Support for UPS, USPS, FedEx, CanadaPost. Each shipping provider can be easily configured by running an intuitive, Wizard-style setup utility.
• For each shipping provider, the store administrator can now select which options to display from each service provider (e.g. only display UPS Next Day Air and UPS Ground, not UPS Second Day).
• The store administrator can set "free shipping" for any shipping option above a certain order value (e.g. make UPS Ground free when the order amount exceeds $150).
• Shipping and handling fees can be added as a separate charge or built into the shipping rates. Fees are specific to each shipping option. For example, the shipping and handling fee associated with an international shipping option can be higher than the fee associated with domestic shipping services.
• Standard packaging type and size, and standard delivery method (e.g. daily pickup, customer counter, etc.) can be set for each shipping provider, to increase the accuracy of the shipping rates.
• Flag a product as oversized to more accurately calculate rates. Specify special packaging size for a specific product. Oversized products are automatically considered a separate package when calculating shipping rates.
• In addition to the shipping service providers listed above, the store administrator can add any number of custom configured shipping options based on weight, quantity, order amount, incremental values.
• One of the features that existing ProductCart customers had specifically asked for was the ability to mix shipping services such as UPS or FedEx, with custom shipping options such as "in-store pickup". Mix custom configured shipping options and dynamic shipping options (e.g. UPS Next Day, UPS Ground, In-store pickup).
• The way shipping options are ordered on the checkout page can be easily changed through a point-and-click interface.
• Allow customers to indicate whether the shipment is to a residential or commercial address.
• The store administrator can now turn on or off the ability for customers to provide a separate shipping address. This allows a store to require that the billing address be the same as the shipping address).
• ProductCart automatically stores multiple shipping addresses for a repeat customer, so that the customer may select the shipping address that applies to a new order from a drop-down menu, without having to re-enter it.
• Print UPS and FedEx shipping labels
  You can complete a shipment and print shipping labels right from your ProductCart Control Panel. No need to export information to any other application. This feature is the result of the tight integration with both UPS and FedEx, officially approved by both companies through a rigorous certification program.
• Print USPS shipping labels
  ProductCart allows you to print shipping labels for shipments through the United States Postal Service too. These shipping labels do not include postage, which can be obtained and applied to the package separately.

For detailed information on how to configure shipping options on an online store powered by our shopping cart software, download the ProductCart User Guide.