[dateline 1-30-2013]

AuctionInc is pleased to announce support for the USPS Priority Mail regional flat rate boxes, complementing our existing support for all the retail flat rate products for Priority and Express mail. 

If you qualify for USPS Commercial Base rates (i.e., you print your USPS labels via an online system), you have this entry point configured in AuctionInc (Carrier Settings, USPS tab), and you have selected on the Carrier Settings USPS tab for AuctionInc to support flat rate boxes, our shipping engine will now test the Regional boxes along with the Retail boxes for domestic Priority Mail.

As with the retail boxes, AuctionInc will first determine if the items in the cart (ShopCart) or API call (Ship Rates API) fit into any of the flat rate products (and meet any weight restrictions). If so, the regular calculated rate will be compared to the cost of the appropriate flat rate box, and Priority Mail will be priced at the rate for whichever packaging method is the least expensive.  If the items fit into both a retail and a regional flat rate box, the cost of both these boxes will be considered along with the calculated rate.

This sophisticated intelligence for managing flat rate boxes is unique to AuctionInc, and offers you and your customers the best possible pricing for USPS services.

More details are available in our Knowledgebase article here.

[Dateline 01-26-2013]

Get ready, folks-- the cost of shipping via the Post Office is going up again.

On Sunday Jan 27, USPS goes live with rates increases across their services and a variety other changes. AuctionInc, as always, is ready to bring you all their changes and updates.

Priority Mail retail pricing will be increasing an average of 9%. If you qualify for their Commercial Base pricing (i.e., you generate labels online), these rates are only increasing 3.7% (and make sure you configure your AuctionInc account for Comm Base pricing!).

Express Mail retail will be rising an average of 6.5%, First Class Package rates, 3% and Parcel Post (now renamed; see below), 6.3%. 

All their Flat Rate Box & Envelope rates are also increasing. For example, the popular Priority domestic Medium Box goes from $11.35 to $12.35, the Small, from $5.35 to $5.80, and the Large, from $15.45 to $16.85.  The increases for international flat rate boxes are especially steep.  These price hikes make AuctionInc's capabilities for determining the best packaging method for each situation, either flat rate box or your own box, even more important.

And-- hold on to your hat-- international services are going up an average of over 14%.

Other service changes (and some are even good news!) include:

• "Parcel Post" has been renamed to "Standard Post" and now offers, along with Priority, free Tracking/Delivery Confirmation.
• Pricing for Express Mail flat rate boxes, for which AuctionInc has just added support, remain unchanged for domestic delivery at $39.95 (The USPS is trying to encourage adaptation of this new box). International pricing is also unchanged.
• First Class International has been reclassified and now qualifies for Commercial Base pricing.
• Express Mail International now offers free insurance on the first $200 of package value (up from $100).
• Express Mail International flat rate envelopes now have a 4 lb limit (from 20 lbs).
• Mexico is no longer is discounted for international flat rate boxes; just Canada.

You can read all the gory details at the USPS site here.

Stamps.com also has a nice presentation of the damage here.

[01-26-2013] 

AuctionInc is pleased to announce our support of the USPS Express Mail flat rate boxes for our products that support item dimensions, adding to our existing support of Priority Mail flat rate boxes and envelopes and Express Mail flat rate envelopes.

Just like our other flat rate product support, AuctionInc will first test for fit into each of the two available box shapes, and if the cart items fit, the cost of the box is then compared to the regular weight-based calculated rate for the service. Express Mail is then priced at whichever is the better rate for you and your customers, and a flag is passed back to you (in your order, or in our API) indicating which packaging method was used.  As the USPS flat rate boxing is only a good deal some of the time, depending on your package weight and destination, AuctionInc's unique capabilities in this area are extremely helpful!

Express Mail flat rate box pricing is $39.95 for domestic Express, and internationally either $64.95 (Canada) or $79.95 (all other countries). The two box sizes and shapes are the same as the Medium Priority Mail boxes (and our codes are also the same, i.e., "FRB1" and "FRB2").

For our cart and "SS" API subscribers, if you already have checked "Use Flat Rate Boxes when appropriate" on your USPS tab of your Carrier Settings page, you are all set. Just look for our flag in the "Shipping & Handling" item of your PayPal or Google Wallet order. And for our "XS" Shipping Rates API subscribers, if you are already sending the "PKG" or "ALL" flag in your FlatRatePackaging element of your Carrier schema, you are all set as well.

As Express Mail can be very expensive (example: 15 lb from MA to CA costs $96.50 at retail rates), the flat rate box for this service can represent a great savings, and gives your customers the option of a fast shipping service at a reasonable rate.

AuctionInc is proud of our capabilities for estimating accurate shipping rates, especially for orders which contain multiple items and may or may not require multiple boxes.  We are confident that our products have for many years been "best of breed" in this area, ever since we developed our original calculator for eBay.

We are now pleased to announce a significant enhancement for accurately determining package count across all our products which support item dimensions (i.e., all but our Mals cart plug-in): 

Sellers may now configure (or send, in our XS API) their maximum box dimensions, complementing our existing support for maximum box weight. Together, these two settings fully describe the largest box you use for shipping.

As with maximum weight, this setting can be differentially configured for each shipping service you offer.

The effect of this is that AuctionInc's packaging engine now has significantly more accuracy in determining when to "split" to the next package and thus determining the appropriate number of boxes necessary for you to pack the items in your order.

Previously, our packaging engine would split when either the seller's maximum box weight or the carrier service's maximum weight or volume was reached.  This is still the case if you choose not to utilize our new configuration option.  But if the largest box you have available for shipping contains less volume than the carrier service supports (which is likely), this setting allows you to take that into account. It also allows you to take into account your particular box shape.  This new setting will be particularly helpful if you sell larger, lighter items, where the volume of your box is likely to be reached before your weight limit is.

As we determine a shipping rate for each shipping service you offer, our packaging engine will use your configured maximum box dimensions to determine if and when an additional box is necessary in a variety of ways:

• if the total volume of your items exceeds the available volume of your largest box;
• if any single item dimension exceeds any single dimension of your largest box;
• if the total of the smallest dimensions of your items exceeds the smallest dimension of your largest box.

With this additional setting, our engine will move to an additional box when any of the conditions above are met, or your maximum box weight is reached, or the maximum weight or volume supported by the carrier service is reached. 

Together with our support for multiple ship origins in the same order, ability to flag each item as packed separately or together, accounting for pack material weight, "on-demand" services, and a host of other configuration options, this enhancement adds another major notch in our capabilities for providing sellers and customers accurate shipping estimates in the ecommerce shopping experience.

Our ShopCart, ShipCalc, and SS (Single Seller) API customers will find this new configuration setting on their Carrier Settings page. Our XS (integrator) API customers may utilize our new schema additions to include these values. We have also released a new version of our PHP Toolkit which supports these additions.

Please let us know of any questions or comments you may have.

AuctionInc has added support to confgure your PayPal Checkout to create an authorization only (i.e., place a hold on the funds) at the time the customer completes the order. You can then manually capture the funds for the order at a later time by running the capture process in your PayPal account.

This setting may interest you if you prefer not to charge for the order at the time of sale, but rather when you are ready to ship the item. If you commonly have a delayed order fulfillment process this might be a good option.

You can enable "Auth" only Paypal Checkout on your AuctionInc Checkout Settings page (Control Center => Checkout Settings).