Tutorial - USPS Shipping Calculator

When you create a new store the 2nd tab you go to is the shipping information about the store. If you would like to use the USPS shipping calculator, you would choose 'Yes' for the dropdown as shown in the image:

With a brand new store, you need to save the store before you will see all the different methods of shipping that USPS provides.

If you save your store, then go back and modify it, the shipping page will now look like this:

In order to use the shipping calculator, you must choose some domestic and international shipping methods that you will support. Keep in mind the weights of the types of items that you are likely to ship, and keep in mind that you may also need to support combined or bulk purchases, so choose shipping methods that will support the sizes of your items and several of your items all packed together, for both domestic and international shipping.

For example, if most of what you sell are sewing patterns that will fit in an envelope and you only choose flat rate envelope or first class mail, then if you get someone who wants to buy 25 patterns that are too heavy for the envelope or first class mail, they will have to contact you for shipping because they will get an error when they try to checkout.

In the example below, I have chosen flat rate envelope and first class mail, but I have tried to add a 100 lb item. Note that the lbs and ounces must be filled in even if they are zero. You can click the 'Test USPS Shipping Setup' button - note - I just fixed this button today. Your item and shipping info will get sent to the USPS server, and any errors or messages will be sent back and displayed under the button. In this case, we got an error saying:

ERROR: The USPS server says: Warning - The package weight cannot exceed 70 pounds.

Another point to note - you should not use the shipping set up in your Paypal account profile if you want to use any of the shipping options on the Mall. Your setting should be as follows:

I set the weight of the item to 10 lbs and the price to $10. I go to preview the item and see this:

Oops - what happened? There are no shipping options listed and potential buyers are told to contact me. I guess neither flat rate envelope nor first class mail can hold a 10 lb item. I will go select some additional shipping methods on my 'modify store' page. In fact, I will choose most of them to make sure I can ship packages of differing sizes and weights:

Now when I go back to view my item pretending I'm a buyer, I see this:

My buyer could now purchase this item.

A good rule is probably to select all the shipping items that you are eligible to do (most people probably can't send via Library Mail), and to check that your items show up ok both to domestic buyers and international buyers. You can do this by logging out of the mall. When you go to view an item you can select your country.

I hope this helps at least a little bit, please let me know if you have any specific questions.

Tip of the Day - where are my items?

A question I get at times is "why don't my items show up?"

If your store is open, you need to mark each item as being "on sale". That doesn't mean your item will end up in some drastic price reduction, it just means your items will be listed when customers browse the mall.

If you are logged in to the mall, previewing your store will show you all of your items, even the ones not on sale yet. A good tip to check that everything is showing up ok, is to log out of the mall and view your store as a customer. If you can't see your items, neither can they.

I signed up for a shop. Now what?

Well you did it. You finally signed up for a mall shop, got a username and password, logged in, now... huh? Where do you start?

I get this question quite often, so I thought I would list the things you need to do to get your store up and running.

First of all when you login to your mall account, you will see the What do I do next? link, under the general section. Click the link, and it should step you through everything you need to do to have enough data entered to get a shop up and running.

I will go through the things that the script checks for, which will hopefully give a better understanding of the big picture and help people who maybe are thinking of signing up but haven't yet...

Step 1. Edit your profile and just check that your email address etc is correct. Also check that the notifications are set the way you want - if they're all set to yes, you will get weekly emails. The "what do I do next" script doesn't check for this.

Step 2. The script checks that you have entered payment information. You can choose Paypal, Google Checkout, or Paypal Layaway. With Paypal Layaway, you set the terms - the downpayment now and the length of time in months to finish paying.

Step 3. Optional: Enter store departments.

Step 4. Add a new store. You can go back and edit your store as often as you like once you've created it.

Step 5. Play around with the theme manager a bit. This is where you can choose from pre-existing themes or make up your own. Here you will be setting the fonts and colours for different areas of the pages. It works with the store formats from step 4, and is set on the very last field of the Format section from the edit store page.

Step 6. Go back and edit your store, and choose a template that you like. Also make sure to specify a category for your store, this will ensure that it shows up on the Shop Page under the appropriate section, as well as under "All Stores."

Step 7. Add items to your store. Go to the items link and click the "Add New Items button." If your store is not yet open, it is safe to mark all your items as "on sale", this specifies that they will show up in the listing, not that they are offered at a discount. They won't show up in the listing of any closed store. If your store is already open, mark your items as "presale" until you are finished working on them.

Step 8. Preview your store. Check that the theme and format work ok for your logo and setup. Check that you can read the font against the background. Check that the payment methods are working - especially in the case of Google Checkout. You can do this by clicking on the Payment button (obviously don't buy your own item - Paypal won't let you, Google checkout probably won't either). If everything looks ok, you can open your store by going to the edit store page, and setting it's status to "Open". It's the 4th field down under the General tab.

Hopefully this will be helpful to some people. I will cover other topics such as the USPS Shipping Calculator and the Theme Manager in more detail in later posts.