Thread: UK 'Shipping' table

I was interested in using either zones or countries for delivery rates, but ASPDNF only seems to offer calculation by zone. But zone seems to be based on numeric US zip codes which is totally inappropriatefor UK Post codes.

The only way I can see around this is to use a third party carrier rather than Royal Mail, but given the size of parcels we use, this is an expensive overkill.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to go about setting up a delivery table for the UK?

BTW.. you have no idea how long it took to find every reference to the word "shipping" and change it to "delivery"!

Hi,

Set the delivery rates by states/counties. Don’t use the zip codes fields.

We use different rates for:

UK Mainland counties
Northern Ireland
Southern Ireland
Scottish Highland
Channel Island

You will have to extend the state/abbreviation field to except longer text field as this is what is used for rates and G Checkout, but try it with “Avon” We had to get a developer to do this for us.

Regards

Dave

I have just implemented shipping by postcode zones. It's a source code update. The problem with using counties is that there is no official list of counties (see other threads in this forum) so it is not 100% reliable.

What I did was firstly add two new AppConfig entries, UsePostcodes and UsePostcodeForShippingZone, in a new group. Then I added validation for all postcode input so that I knew I at least had a valid format. Then I wrote a check in Shipping.ZoneLookup:

Code:

          // pbd: start of redirection to postcode lookup.
            if (AppLogic.AppConfigBool(ProofByDesignUtils.Constants.AppConfig.UsePostcodeForShippingZone))
            {
                return ProofByDesignUtils.ZoneLookupPostcode(zip);
            }
            // pbd: end of redirection to postcode lookup.

I can send you the actual lookup routine if you want to use it.

Our courier, Fastway, was kind enough to send us a full list of their postcode charging areas in relation to our shipping point.

Cheers, Rob

Without buying the source code I'm a bit stuck.

So, I my current thought is to implement delivery rates by country, which is simple enough.

Yes, that should work so long as customers can happily match their county. I added Avon back in because so many people still use it even though it is no longer an official county.

In one way, it's a better option that using postcode because you provide them with a list so you know the input is valid, whereas with postcode you can only validate the format.

An unmatched area code results in a match on the fallback zone, which is typically overseas - hopefully your dispatching staff would notice that anomaly and correct the address though.

Rob

Interesting Thanks

Originally Posted by kentrob

I have just implemented shipping by postcode zones. It's a source code update. The problem with using counties is that there is no official list of counties (see other threads in this forum) so it is not 100% reliable.

What I did was firstly add two new AppConfig entries, UsePostcodes and UsePostcodeForShippingZone, in a new group. Then I added validation for all postcode input so that I knew I at least had a valid format. Then I wrote a check in Shipping.ZoneLookup:

Code:

          // pbd: start of redirection to postcode lookup.
            if (AppLogic.AppConfigBool(ProofByDesignUtils.Constants.AppConfig.UsePostcodeForShippingZone))
            {
                return ProofByDesignUtils.ZoneLookupPostcode(zip);
            }
            // pbd: end of redirection to postcode lookup.

I can send you the actual lookup routine if you want to use it.

Our courier, Fastway, was kind enough to send us a full list of their postcode charging areas in relation to our shipping point.

Cheers, Rob

If you could send me the actual lookup routine that would be really helpfull... thanks

I've just implemented shipping by postcode; it's a source update.

I wondered (if any of the original contributors to this thread are around), how you handled shipping to EIRE?

I only have 1 country in our database currently - United Kingdom. I hide the counties / state field so it's redundant.

Is it best just to add another country to the DB, and if that gets selected (Eire) then the postcode field is not required?