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Digital Prophet
03-03-2007, 09:42 PM
I just don't know what to do. I am trying to open an online store but everywhere I turn I keep running into problems.

We sell frozen dog food so we our shipments can only be in transit for two days. We use UPS to ship boxes up to forty pounds each. Shipments in excess of 40 lbs go into multiple boxes.

Currently my store is hosted with ProStores (The Dinner Bowl (http://www.thedinnerbowl.com)). But they can not mix live and flat rates.

Since ProStores can't mix rates I am going to have to move to another managed host. I was planning to go with Volusion but today (minutes before I was going to sign) I realized that Volusions can not divide my sales into 40 lb containers. Since that is the case orders greater than 150 lbs (a regular occurence) will not get shipping estimates. So I can not use them.

What I need is:

Offer a flat rate for UPS Ground
Limit visibility of UPS Ground to people that are within two day delivery range
Mix flat rate with live UPS estimates
Incorporate box size (24"x24"x24") for accurate UPS estimates
Divide total sale weight into 40 lb box multiples
Would really like to use GoogleCheckout

I am really at a loss over this. I desperately need some advice on a reliable managed host. I want to go with a managed host because I am new to ecommerce, am not a very experienced programmer and do not have my own server.

Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated. I am just at my wits end.

Curt
The Dinner Bowl (http://www.thedinnerbowl.com)
roban
03-04-2007, 06:59 AM
Take a look at CSCart. They have a product configurator that might be just the ticket for you. I use it for my vitamin store although don't use the configurator.
TipPro
03-05-2007, 11:01 AM
I think a lot of shopping cart solutions will be able to handle all of your requests besides for #2 "Limit visibility of UPS Ground to people that are within two day delivery range", this may need some custom server side coding. I know Miva Merchant (w/ addition of third party modules) can handle your requests and I also believe osCommerce can handle this (again with third party modules).

If you want to be sure before you sign up with one, post your requirements in either the Miva forum or osCommerce forum and other users and designers of that shopping cart system will let you know for sure.
Digital Prophet
03-07-2007, 03:43 PM
Well I appreciate both of your answers. I have to say that I have done alot of looking and poking and I am just terribly dissappointed. Out of dozens of solutions that I looked at I could not find even one that could handle something as simple as this. And I say it's simple b/c all of them came close. Where one might be lacking one feature that another had the other lacked a feature of the first.

I finally decided to go with Volusion for now since thier solution seemed to come the closest. But it is still a far cry from perfect.

All I can say is that I hope that some business savvy programmer is out there reading this and realizes that there is a terrible underdeveloped market for ecommerce solutions with really versatile shipping methods.

Curt
The Dinner Bowl (http://www.thedinnerbowl.com)
JPnyc
03-07-2007, 04:14 PM
Well the other solution is hiring a developer. You might be able to get one at a price that is comparable to what these prefab solutions would cost if you go to guru.com or dice.com or similar site.
JEccles
03-07-2007, 04:31 PM
I finally decided to go with Volusion for now since thier solution seemed to come the closest. But it is still a far cry from perfect.


I think you'll like Volusion. We've been with them for 6 months now and have been quite happy. Sign up on their forum and you might be able to get the answers for the fixes you need.

BYW - love the dog in your header. It looks alot like mine (cattle dog mix).
Digital Prophet
03-07-2007, 10:23 PM
BYW - love the dog in your header. It looks alot like mine (cattle dog mix).

Well thanks for looking at the site and for taking the time to post. I am just about ready to sign with Volusion but I am a little hesitant b/c of the price of thier templates and it looks like the "free" ones are pretty closed. I want to be able to post some verbiage on my index page.

But that is neither here nor there.

The dog's name is Nike and she is a little catahoula mutt. I shot that photo in our farm house kitchen. I plan to add alot of dog photography to the site (whereever it may wind up) since that is my side gig. Well I guess this is my side gig. So that must be my side, side gig.

Curt
The Dinner Bowl (http://www.thedinnerbowl.com)