UPS rates

The UPS rates shipment plugin for VirtueMart fetches rates from your UPS account based on the product weight, cart dimensions, shipping destination. It is a service available for a lot of countries around the world.

Get the plugin Demo

UPS rates features

All US Domestic services and International Services are included. (The list is at the end of this page).

• Options:
  • Pickup method
  • Customer classification
  • Insurance
  • Destination type dependent rates: Residential or Commercial rates or automatic detection for the specific delivery address
  • Negociated rates: displays specific rates if you have negociated with UPS
  • Delivery confirmation: for all the products in the cart, or only for some products.
• Costs
  • Additional cost: flat based, or a percentage of the returned rate
  • Free shipment if the cart is above a specific amount
  • Uses VirtueMart Tax rules
• Packaging
  • weight and dimensions padding for the entire content of the cart
  • split the cart in several packages if the weight or dimensions of the entire cart is above UPS limits
• Restrictions: you can restrict the availibility of UPS
  • if the cart content is above or below a specific amount
  • if some products are in the cart (usefull if your shop contains products that are not allowed by UPS)
  • based on country and / or state delivery
• Checkout options to display rates without the shopper registrating
  • add a form requesting the delivery country, state and / or zip
  • display rates using geoIp locator
• Templating
  • can overwrite the default template
  • can add:
    • extra information along the UPS rate description
    • scheduled delivery time
    • guaranteed days to delivery
• Debugging option included
• Orders in the backend: complete description of the selected rate

UPS rates is available for the following countries

UPS rates is available for the following countries

• Algeria
• Angola
• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Bahamas
• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Belgium
• Bermuda
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Canada
• Cayman Islands
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Djibouti
• Dominican Republic
• DR of Congo
• Ecuador
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Ethiopia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ghana
• Greece
• Guatemala
• Guernsey
• Honduras
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Ivory Coast
• Japan
• Jersey
• Jordan
• Kenya
• Kuwait
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Macau
• Malawi
• Malaysia
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Morocco
• Mozambique
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Nicaragua
• Nigeria
• Norway
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico
• Qatar
• Romania
• Russia
• Rwanda
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sri Lanka
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Tunisia
• Turkey
• Uganda
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Uruguay
• US Virgin Islands
• Venezuela
• Vietnam
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

Create your UPS account

1. If you have not yet created a UPS profile, you will first need to create one at UPS's website. While registrating, note of the User ID and Password you enter; you will need them to configure the shipment plugin.
2. From the My UPS › Account Summary page click the Open a UPS Account link, then click the Open a UPS Account today link.
3. To request an access key, while still logged in to your UPS profile, go to the UPS Developer Kit site, and click the Request an access key link.

Installation of the UPS rates Plugin

Install the plugin via the Joomla installer

1. Once the plugin has been installed, you can go directly to http://yourwebsite.com/administrator/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=shipmentmethod
2. Create a new shipment method by clicking on the new button
3. Enter a shipment name
4. Select in the Shipment Method parameter alatak_upsrates
5. Click on the Save button

Click on the Configuration tab

Configuration of the UPS rates Plugin

Account Parameters

Integration or Production: Integration Environment is used to test and debug by simulating transactions. Once your application has been thoroughly tested, you can use the UPS Production Environment.

API Key is a 16 character alpha-numeric code given by UPS whi

User Password, MyUPS User ID (user name) are the ones from your UPS account

UPS Shipper Account Number: A Shipping Account Number is required when requesting to receive the negotiated rates. The Shipping Account Number is optional when requesting to receive the published rates

UPS settings

Those setting concerns the UPS options you want to use

Delivery Services: the options displayed depends on your shop country

UPS pickup method: additional charge may be added depending on this option. You can select:

• Daily Pickup: A UPS driver automatically stops at your location once each business day, as scheduled, to pick up ground, air, and international shipments.
• Customer Counter
• One Time Pickup
• On Call Air
• Suggested Retail Rates
• Letter Center
• Air Service Center

Pickup day

Customer classification: Package allows the calling application to specify a Customer Classification Code that determines the Rate returned. This parameter must be different from 'None' when the Pickup method is 'Suggested Retail Rates'

Options are:

• None
• Daily rates
• Occasional
• Retail rates
• Standard List Rates

Insured value: If this option is activated, the product prices is sent to UPS, and UPS adds a shipping insurance the rates (more expensive).

Destination type: UPS charges residential deliveries more than commercial ones for their Ground shipping (typically $1 or $2 more). If the parameter is set to Auto, and the company field is entered by the client, the destination type will be commercial.

The options are:

• Auto: depending on the ship to address, the plugin will automatically set the correct destination type,
• Commercial
• Residential

Negociated rates: UPS customers that require a high volume of shipments may have negotiated special rates for their shipments that differ from the UPS published rates. If the customer is authorized for negotiated rates, and if negotiated rates apply to the particular service, the plugin will display the negociated rates.

Delivery confirmation: you can verify that your shipment was delivered with your choice of signature or adult signature options. The options are:

• No: No delivery confirmation
• Delivery Confirmation: UPS will provide confirmation of delivery without the recipient's signature.
• Signature Required: UPS will obtain the recipient's signature and provide you with a printed copy. You may also view the recipient's signature online.
• Adult Signature Required: UPS will obtain the adult recipient's signature and provide you with a printed copy. You may also view the adult recipient's signature online.

Delivery confirmation Categories: this option is only displayed if the option Delivery Confirmation is not set to No.

• If you do not select any categories, the Delivery confirmation will be requested regardless of the products in the cart.
• If you select one or more categories, and if one or more product form those categories is in the cart, the request for rates will include delivery confirmation

Pricing for Value added Services

Cost / Free shipment

Additional cost: are additional cost to apply to each rate returned. You can add a flat amount or a percentage amount.

Free shipment: enter an amount for which the shipment is offered. Do not enter any value, if you do not offer shipment

Tax rule: the tax rule to apply to your shipment

Packaging

Weight Unit for UPS, Dimension Unit For UPS: Unit of measure for the request for rates to UPS. It depends of your originated country. There must be a consistency between KGS/CM or LBS/IN

Weight Padding, Dimensions Padding : you can adjust the dimension and weight. Padding is applied for the entire content of the cart. It can be a flat value or a percent, %, e.g. 15%, or 15 to add

Packaging: Package/customer supplied. Contact me if you want more options to be added.

Parcel packing: All products in boxes. Contact me if you want more options to be added.

Conditions

Destinations : you can either select the countries you want to ship to, or select the countries you want to exclude. For each country, you can select the state you want to include or exclude by adding the 2 code State name. You can add several state by separting them with a comma.

Examples:

• Shipping all over the world, except Alaska in United States:
  Solution: Exclude Country, United States, Exclude state=Alaska
• Shipping to United states only, except to Alaska:
  Solution: Include United States, Exclude State=Alaska

Show on product details

This option has not been implemented yet. Will be done if requested.

Checkout

During the checkout, to avoid the message "We are sorry, no shipment method matches the characteristics of your order.", you can either add a form requesting the shopper to enter his ship to country and or state and or zip code, or display the rates based on his IP address. The 2 options are:

• Form requesting ZIP/State/Country
• Geo IP locator

With the IP geo locator, if the client did not give at least a Bill To address, the plugin Ups rates automatically detects the country and ZIP of the customer and request the rates for this destination.

The second solution is to request the minimum information to the client, i.e: destination country, state and Zip code. The plugin will display the rates for this destination.

Example with the option Form requesting ZIP/State/Country

Notes the geoIplocator:

• This solution uses the service from ipinfo.io
• It requires that the CURL function is enabled. And in some rare case, some hosts cannot connect to the host ipinfo.io, and thus no result is returned.
• If you need to make more than 1,000 API requests a day you must subscribe to a monthly paid plan. More information on their website. Note that requests to ipinfo.io are optimized: only one request is done per user session, and bot traffic is filtered by looking at the user-agent header.

Update cart with the address found: you can decide if the informations either found via the GeoIplocator, or via the form will be saved in the cart, and therefor help the shopper to faster proceed to the cehckout.

Templating

The UPS rates plugin uses templating, which is overwritable. Please read the documentation to find more about this possibility.

However , several options are already available to display rates information.

UPS logo: select the logo you would like to display together with the shipment rates

Display shipment name, Display shipment description: the shipment name and description are the one in the first tab Shipment method Information . By default this option is set to No. But you can use it to add some extra information.

Display Insured Value to customer: the string With insurance will be added to the rates

Display scheduled delivery time: if this information has been returned by UPS, it will be displayed

Display guaranteed days to delivery: if this information has been returned by UPS, it will be displayed

Debug

In the shipment configuration, there is an option to turn On / Off the debug option.

If you select the option admin only, you must log in as administrator to see the debug informations.
If you select For all, everybody will see the debug information, even your clients.

Orders in the administration

When the order is saved, all the information concerning the rated shipment are saved.

Requirements

The UPS rate plugin requires that the weigth for all products is set.

Dimensions are sent if they are set in the product. Since dimensional weight is now used by UPS used in the rate calculation, we recommed to set the dimensions for all your products.

List of services