With Real Time Shipping (RTS), your website connects to one or more of the major shipping carriers (UPS, USPS, FedEx, Australia Post, Canada Post and DHL) and gets the price that the carrier would charge to ship that order based on the weight and/or size of the products ordered, and the origin and destination of the package. This requires an account with one or more of the 3rd-party carriers, and incurs additional monthly fees through those companies.
NOTE: More than one carrier can be used at the same time, to give your customers a wider array of shipping choices.
Calculations
When using Real Time Shipping rates, the software sends the total weight of all of the products, the dimensions (if the product is set as is ship separately), the customer's shipping address, and the origin address. The origin address is taken either from the storefront address (see below) or the drop shipper's address if using drop shipping (UPS only). The carrier then calculates the rates based on this information and returns it to the site for display.
Rate Restrictions
By default, the software will display all rates that the shipping carrier returns. This means that the shipping carrier determines which methods are applicable to the customer, and the customer can choose from any of them. Some store owners may want to restrict these choices. This can be done by preventing shipping methods from appearing.
To restrict where customers can ship to, store owners must prevent customers from registering from those addresses.
General Setup
To set up Real Time Shipping (regardless of the carrier you choose to use), the following steps must first be performed:
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters.
2. In the “Config Search” box, enter Origin, then click Search.
3. Each of these RTShipping.Origin AppConfigs needs to be populated. These make up the origin address that is used for shipping calculations, so set them to the address you wish to use for that purpose. Note the following rules:
- Be sure that RTShipping.OriginState is a 2-letter abbreviation, do not use the full state name
- RTShipping.OriginZip should only be 5 digits
4. Go to Configuration → Shipping → Shipping Rates Table in the AspDotNetStorefront admin menu, and put a dot next to the “Use Real Time Rates” option, then click “Set as Active Shipping Calculation Method”.
UPS
Once the General Real Time Shipping setup steps have been completed, follow the steps below to enable UPS shipping:
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters
2. In the Config Search box, enter “RTShipping.ups”, then click Search.
3. The following AppConfigs will need to be populated with your personal account information, obtained from UPS. Do not change the other AppConfigs unless instructed to do so!
- RTShipping.UPS.License (UPS refers to this as an Access Key)
- RTShipping.UPS.Password
- RTShipping.UPS.UserName
4. Finally, search for the “RTShipping.ActiveCarrier” AppConfig, and set the value to UPS.
USPS
Once the General Real Time Shipping setup steps have been completed, follow the steps below to enable USPS shipping:
1. Obtain access to the USPS Web Tools by clicking the "Register Now" link, and submitting your information.
2. You should receive an email from USPS with your username and password for the API. These credentials should be valid for the USPS production and test servers.
3. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters
4. In the Config Search box, enter “RTShipping.usps”, then click Search.
5. The following AppConfig will need to be populated with your personal account information, obtained from USPS. Do not change the other AppConfigs unless instructed to do so!
- RTShipping.USPS.UserName: This is the username assigned to you by USPS.
6. Finally, search for the “RTShipping.ActiveCarrier” AppConfig, and set the value to USPS.
NOTE: USPS has recently changed their maximum shipping weight through their live rates API to 70 lbs. Customers should make sure that their RTShipping.USPS.MaxWeight AppConfig is set to 70 or less.
FedEx
Once the General Real Time Shipping setup steps have been completed, follow the steps below to enable FedEx shipping:
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters
2. In the Config Search box, enter “RTShipping.Fedex”, then click Search.
3. The following AppConfigs will need to be populated with your personal account information, obtained from FedEx. Do not change the other AppConfigs unless instructed to do so!
- RTShipping.FedEx.AccountNumber
- RTShipping.FedEx.Meter *
- RTShipping.FedEx.Key
- RTShipping.FedEx.Password
4. Finally, search for the “RTShipping.ActiveCarrier” AppConfig, and set the value to FedEx.
NOTE: FedEx's API does not accept product dimensions with decimal places (ie 3.5). Remember that when entering dimensions for your products, they will be rounded up to whole numbers if you're using FedEx Real Time Shipping rates (MSx9200+).
* To obtain your FedEx Web Services Meter Number, follow this procedure:
- Go to the FedEx developer website
- Login to FedEx and select "Web Services for Shipping" from the drop down selector
- Select "FedEx Web Services" on the left side navigation, then "Move to Production"
- Click the button called "Get Production Key"
- Fill out the required information and you will be given your meter number and credentials
Australia Post
Once the General Real Time Shipping setup steps have been completed, follow the steps below to enable AusPost shipping:
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters.
2. In the Config Search box, enter “RTShipping.AusPost”, then click Search.
3. Verify that the following AppConfigs are configured as desired for your site. Note that AusPost does not require any username/password information to return live rates.
- RTShipping.AusPost.DefaultPackageSize
- RTShipping.AusPost.DomesticServices
- RTShipping.AusPost.IntlServices
- RTShipping.AusPost.MaxWeight
4. Change the "Localization.StoreCurrency" AppConfig to "AUD" (see this page for more information on changing locales).
5. Change the "Localization.WeightUnits" AppConfig to "kg" (see this page for more information on changing locales).
6. Finally, search for the “RTShipping.ActiveCarrier” AppConfig, and set the value to AusPost.
Canada Post
Once the General Real Time Shipping setup steps have been completed, follow the steps below to enable Canada Post shipping:
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin site, go to Configuration → Advanced → AppConfig Parameters.
2. In the Config Search box, enter “RTShipping.CanadaPost”, then click Search.
3. Verify that the following AppConfig is configured with your account information from Canada Post.
- RTShipping.CanadaPost.MerchantID
4. Change the "Localization.StoreCurrency" AppConfig to "CAD" (see this page for more information on changing locales).
5. Change the "Localization.WeightUnits" AppConfig to "kg" (see this page for more information on changing locales).
6. Finally, search for the “RTShipping.ActiveCarrier” AppConfig, and set the value to CanadaPost.