Installing the Shipping Calculator Plug-In For Mals-e.com

What specifically are the steps to install the plug-in?

• Register for the Plug-in if you have not already done so
  
• Configure your shipping calculator preferences by completing our Setup Wizard
  
  
  Next, using our plug-in is essentially a matter of completing two forms, one our our side, one on the Mals side:
  
  
• Complete our Mals E-commerce Settings form. This will tell us about your Mals cart and allow you to customize our calculator page to match the look and feel of your Mal's shopping cart.
  
• Update your Mals-e.com Shipping Preferences to use the Plug-in as described below
  
  
• And finally, make sure you have used the Mals "units" field to list your item weights, as described below.
  
  

 Please follow all the below instructions in both sections (both AuctionInc and Mals sections):

AuctionInc Account Setup

2. Register your Mals cart with AuctionInc and Customize your Calculator page. Next, go to our Mal's Configuration form. This configuration page will allow you to tell us about your Mals cart and customize the Plug-in to have the same look and feel as your Mal's Shopping Cart.   The Help popup window on the form contains the details for each of the settings.   If you used a third party to set up your mals cart and dont know your Mals Server URL, look in your third party Admin area; it will be listed where your Mals userid is also listed.

Special Note:

The Split Weight setting merits some additional information. The Mal's integration with the AuctionInc Plug-in passes only the total weight and value of the items in the shopping cart when the shopper presses the Calculate Shipping button. This limitation can present a problem when the combination of two or more items might require multiple packages to ship the order. To address this situation, the Split Weight setting allows you to control when the shipping calculator should split an order into multiple packages.  All items in the Mals cart will be included when determining this split.

When the combined weight of the order exceeds your defined limit, the calculator will automatically determine the appropriate number of packages and compute the shipping rate each. When creating multiple packages, the dollar value of the order is distributed evenly as a percentage of the weight of the package for the purpose of computing insurance.

Here is an example of how the calculator would work:

Split Weight setting of 40 lbs.
Combined weight of shopping cart items equals 60 lbs
Combined dollar value of shopping cart items equals $100.00
Calculator would compute shipping rates and insurance for following:
1 - Package at 40 lbs, valued at $66
1 - Package at 20 lbs, valued at $33

If you typically package most of your items together in the same box, you should set the split weight to the highest weight you are willing to pack into one box.  The split weight setting is more critical if you sell items that typically ship seperately.  In this case, set your split weight to the average weight of your items. Setting the split weight lower will result in more packages being generated which in turn increases the shipping rates. Setting the weight higher will generate fewer packages and might result in shipping rates that may not cover your actual cost. You may need to experiment with this setting to find the right balance.  

Your Mals Cart Account Setup

1.  Shipping Calculation Configuration

From Mal's Administration for the Shopping Cart, click on the Shipping link.  Select Option #8 (Posting Your Own Total).  Copy the HTML in the box below and paste into the text field of option 8:
<a href=http://www.auctioninc.com/util/mals.php?userid=YOUR-MALS-ID&{x}><img src=http://auctioninc.com/images/site/calcship1.gif border=0></a>
(Note: 150 character limit)
Make sure to replace YOUR-MALS-ID in the text above with your Mals-e user id. For example, if your user id was B123456, the link would look like this:
<a href=http://auctioninc.com/util/mals.php?userid=B123456&{x}><img src=http://auctioninc.com/images/site/calcship1.gif border=0></a>

Be careful not to have any line breaks in the url.If you prefer to use your own customized image for the "Calculate Shipping" button in the Mals cart, just change the source of the image (ie, "img src") in the code above to point to your own image.

Leave the checkbox for Automatically set units to equal the price (shipping by value) unchecked.

Note:  if you are using Advanced Shipping, you may need to turn it off in order to see the Standard Shipping options. To do this, go to "Global settings" and select "Just use the standard shipping calculations."

2.  Shipping Calculator Message

Next, from Mal's Admin Shopping Cart Setup Menu, click on the Messages and General Settings link.  In the Shipping text box, paste in the following text:
Shipping is calculated using real-time shipping rates that are based on the actual weight of the items you are purchasing.<b>Changes to cart requires you to click Calculate Shipping to update rates.</b>
You may change the text to your preferences (note: 250 character limit)

3.  Weight of Items

Finally, if you haven't already added the standard units variable the links of your "Add to Cart" buttons in your web site then you will need to update your web site HTML. The units variable is used to indicate the weight of the item in the pounds (lbs) unit of measure. This value will drive our weight-based shipping quotes.  You can use decimal values (ie, 2.2) if needed. Be sure to convert your ounces to fractional pounds (i.e. 1 lbs 8 oz = 1.50 lbs).

An example of the Add To Cart URL:

<a href="http://ww9.aitsafe.com/cf/add.cfm?userid=B713636&product=Yellow+Widget&price=12.95&units=1.25">Add to Cart</a>

Units can also be added as a form variable. For additional information on creating Add To Cart buttons visit Mals Shopping Cart Support page.

If you have a site that uses the OptionCart catalog system (which is sold through a variety of resellers such as Pappashop), you can enter the "units" value thru your Administation system.  Edit your products and fill in the "units" value with your item weight.

Other Configuration Considerations

1.  Handling Fees   Both AuctionInc and Mal's allow you to configure handling fees.  It is your decision which system, if any,  to use to manage these. We do not suggest that you use both as this would make life more complex than it need be!  AuctionInc does offer far more options in determining and setting your handling fees than does Mal's at this time. 

2.  Sales Taxes   You should configure any necessary taxes on your product cost through the Mal's configuration.  Also, if you need to tax shipping as well as your item cost, please also set this option through the Mal's configuration (the first option on the Mal's Sales Tax configuration page). 

3.  Insurance Calculations   Mal's sends to our shipping calculator one summary figure for the item value in the Mal's Shopping Cart.  Similar to the weight total, our shipping calculator has no way of knowing how many items are represented in this total and if more than one item, how much value each item has.  This makes correctly calculating insuance costs somewhat problematic.  Our solution to this is very much like the one we are using for the summary weight total; ie, we will divide the total value by the same percentages as we use with the weight on splitting packages.  For example, if the total value of the item(s) in the cart is $100, the total weight is 12.5 lbs, and your split weight is 5 lbs, we will assume that the first two packages are worth $40 and the third is worth $20.  Insurance also cannot be controlled at an item level; you may set it as either globally on or off, by setting your insurance threshold appropriately on the Carrier Settings page. 

4.  Optional Insurance Option   The optional insurance configuration option which is listed on our Carriers Configuration page is not available for the Mal's Plug-In at this time.  It will be available in future versions.

A comprehensive list of the differences in supported features between our ShopCart and our Mals Plug-In is available here.

How Do You Determine Which Carrier Service your Customer Selected?:

The shipping method that your customer selects during their purchasing session will be listed in the Detail of each Mal's order.  In Mal's, click on "View Orders" and then the "Detail" link for each order.  The method appears in the Delivery Details section, directly below the customer's phone.  After the selected service, we also list, in parentheses, the two letter country code and the postal code which were entered in the calculator and upon which the shipping rate was determined, i.e., "USPS Priority Mail (US:01609)".