UPS Prices v Reality - Endicia / PirateShip

[talerco]

Hello;
We do a lot of shipping via UPS - but not near enough to have our stated rates discounted to what Endicia and PirateShip offer.
That means that the UPS rates shown at checkout are much higher than what we actually pay - and we are sure many potential customers are turned off.
We have modified the UPS rates to be shown with a percentage reduction but while this can help get closer generally it is still way high for some orders and way low for others depending on weight and location. It seems the way low orders are completed while the way high are not - meaning lost business - except when we lose money on shipping. ;)
Is there any way to get Endicia or PirateShip real time rates to show in MIVA?
Thanks, David
SunOrganic Farm

[lesliekirk]

Hello;
We do a lot of shipping via UPS - but not near enough to have our stated rates discounted to what Endicia and PirateShip offer.
That means that the UPS rates shown at checkout are much higher than what we actually pay - and we are sure many potential customers are turned off.
We have modified the UPS rates to be shown with a percentage reduction but while this can help get closer generally it is still way high for some orders and way low for others depending on weight and location. It seems the way low orders are completed while the way high are not - meaning lost business - except when we lose money on shipping. ;)
Is there any way to get Endicia or PirateShip real time rates to show in MIVA?
Thanks, David
SunOrganic Farm

Hi David,

I have had other store owners ask about getting PirateShip into Miva but I can't seem to get any answers for them too. Perhaps since they are MM10 stores we may need to move our request there or better yet, to the "Dream Features" forum.

Leslie

[Rick Wilson]

I can tell you us doing a Pirate Ship integration in the next few months is not going to happen. I'm not sure if Advanced Shipping Manager is a workaround to get them? If ASM isn't an option, the only other near term option would be PirateShip to build an integration to us.

And yes the Dream Features forum is the right location, but again this won't make the 2023 roadmap.

[delcorsets]

As a ShipStation user I would mention that they too offer really good UPS and DHL rates and there's already a Miva integration. I did some comparisons with a friend who's business uses PirateShip and the rates are pretty much identical with ShipStation's rates.

Even with an integration however I'm not sure that it would be possible for Miva to pull the shipping softwares's discounted shipping rate. That's being selected manually and then calculated in ShipStation/PirateShip (or other,) after shipper chooses shipping method, correct?...

[talerco]

When we print a label through MIVA / Endicia we get a rate that is virtually identical to PirateShip. However, this is significantly lower that our UPS rates that show at checkout. Is there a way to integrate the Endicia rates to be seen at checkout?
Thanks

[Rick Wilson]

No getting live rates during checkout is a totally different set of API's then when you go print a label.

Natively we can pull rates from UPS, USPS, FedEx and Canada Post, there's also an app called Advanced Shipping Manager that can do more with rate displays.

Your options here would be to see if there's a consistent percentage discount, then you could apply it via the shipping rules and keep an eye on it. Second you could see if Advanced Shipping Manager can help. Finally a custom shipping rate module.

[Kent Multer]

If anyone is interested in a custom module for this, you're welcome to contact me for a quote.