I have a question and ive been trying to come up with an answer but all the solutions i can come up with suck.
I want to take advantage of vendio's shipping ability, however, because you dont integrate USPS shipping like paypal, I have to use endicia or stamps.com. Lets assume im using endicia for this example (plus it seems most people prefer that anyways)
Lets say in a normal business day for us, around a certain time each day, we decide to start preparing to ship.
We go to what has been paid and we print out a list, we then start pulling items from our "items won but not paid" stack and set aside.
We then start printing out shipping labels for these items. When using paypal shipping, because you have to click on each item and fill in the form every single time, when the label gets printed out, we can write on the shipping label itself what item needs to be shipped.
However, I want to take advantage of endicia's bulk shipping label printing method. When I tried it before, vendio would export the data out, I would import into dazzle and it would spit out labels like it was throwing money out. As you can tell, this is a huge time saver because all the weight information is already stored on vendio
However, now I have this huge problem. For example, today I have 86 items that need to be shipped out. If I used the dazzle process, I would now have 86 labels and the only information I would have is the freaking name and address of the person. I have no other way to ID who purchased what. I would have to open each 86 packages and start matching one at a time, basically a match me game from hell
Now im sure you guys must have thought around this. Is there a way to print out some kind of packing slip that matches the order of the shipping labels printed? Or is there just another completely better way to do this?
We've only been selling for a couple of months now so im really open to new ideas. If another seller out there has a much more efficient way to do this, please let me know!
posted on November 30, 2005 06:12:57 PM new
Hello,
What you could try doing is in step 4 in Vendio Post Sale, print out the label and invoice combo. Then cut the label from the invoice and stick the invoice in the package, and loosely tape the invoice to the package. This could work, involves some cutting but its a lot easier than opening up packages. Or if you don't put the Vendio invoice in packages you can just loosely affix it to a package, and do it that way.
Let me know if you have tried this, or if it doesn't fit in with your post sale scheme -- perhaps we can come up with something better or more time saving for you.
posted on December 1, 2005 06:02:30 PM new
Hi. The suggested solution works if the items are not fully wrapped and/or sealed before the auction is finalized, and the packages are dealt with one by one. I think the problem cutseyshoes is referring to is that to handle a large number of items it really helps to get all the wrapping done in batches in advance of the sale ready to go to just add the label of the future winner and ship.
Printing out the invoice-label combo could work for pre-wrapped packages if both the invoice and mailing label are taped to the outside of the package, but it is still a one-by-one print, cut, and paste item-by-item process. The question is how to do labels in bulk. If only labels are printed, it takes more than the name and address to match the label to the package. The label has to have an auction number, a SKU, an order number--something on it to make the connection.
posted on December 3, 2005 03:09:35 AM new
Yep, pretty much what passedtothepresent said. I tried your invoice/label combo and its ok when dealing with 20 packages to ship out. But I dont even remember the last time had to only ship out 20 packages in a day. Its more like 80+ now and rapidly growing.
Im just looking for some kind of way to print the label out which would also contain the auction name/sku/anytypeofID. Like with most merchandise based businesses, I think we often FIRST look for the item, THEN make sure that person purchased that item (through the invoice)
What your suggestion does is make it completely backward, you want us to look by customer name which as you can expect means for every item you have to ship out, that is the same # of unique names you have to look through. IE pain in the ass
SOMEONE MUST HAVE THOUGHT THIS OUT & REALIZED THIS. I mean, im a complete idiot and I realized this problem the first day I tried printing out labels.
I made my suggestion based on what you originally posted but it does not appear that i have gotten how you ship your items. The way you posted, it sounded like you were figuring out everything by name of customer. How are you packaging all of your items, and figuring out what is what? This is what I am not understanding so in order for us to make a suggestion that works, or talk to our development team about what we can do to make it better for you, we need to know more about how you do your shipments and how you differentiate between what is what.
posted on December 5, 2005 03:12:11 PM new
Hi. For me, anything would work as long as I know what it is before the sale closes (that is, it is something item-dependent instead of customer-dependent). Anything uniquely associated with the initial listing would do that, but Ebay auction number would be ideal since every auction has it's own unique number even if the seller doesn't use a sku or lists many identical items with the same title. Anything that works for Vendio could work for us if we know what it is in advance. What doesn't work are things that get generated/redone/combined after the sale like Vendio order number or customer name and address.
posted on December 5, 2005 05:43:57 PM new
Hello Passedtothepresent,
We now include SKU numbers on Vendio invoices. Auction ID numbers are always on there. If you can somehow get these on your boxes that you prepackage, it should be a breeze for you.
posted on December 7, 2005 01:19:45 PM new
Sonya-- Thanks for the reply back. I'm sure everyone who uses sku's is delighted (I do use sku's and it is a great invoice improvement. Thanks!). But for this question thread, adding a sku to the invoice fixes nothing. The problem is not with the Vendio invoice.
How can anything Vendio generates be put on packages when they are prepackaged????? The winner is not known, and no invoice has or can be generated at the time of packaging because shipping and invoice totals are not known either.
To "replicate this problem" for yourself, wrap an imaginary set of boxes awaiting buyers with appropriate auction numbers and/or sku's scribbled on them in a location where the future label is going to go. Now, walk over to that pile of packages later with a only a list of names and addresses. See if you can tell who won what.
The auction number needs to also print out on the label. None of the identifying info is on the label if only the name and address information is exported. The auction number must also be inclided with the name and address data export.
posted on December 7, 2005 04:37:27 PM new
I think passedtothepresent's problem, albit slightly different, is focusing on the same problem. Lets view it from a sales shipping perspective:
We pull out the items that are to be shipped at that day. We sell shoes so the stack of items is a bunch of shoe boxes with the type of shoe printed on the side of the box. So technically even if we're shipping out 80 boxes of shoes and its usually around 90% unique items (size and color differences etc), we can usually tell by the type of box or color of box what the item is. It helps reduce the mixing and matching and narrows the selection down a bit.
Now we print the shipping labels. Before, using paypal shipping, I would write down the name of the item on the label. This information (style name, size, color) is then matched to the stack of items that need to be shipped
We then look at the invoice thats inside to verify that its the same person who purchased the item. That item is then wrapped, the shipping label is stuck on top, and its set aside.
Now correct me if im wrong, but I think this is how most companies ship. they match the item type first then make sure the shipping addressee is the same. You can be selling computer parts or dvds, I think the principle applies to just about everything.
Its just that the shipping label printed by endicia is completely devoid of any information besides the shipping address. I know this isnt your problem per say, but is there something you guys are planning to do about it? Im sure theres money to be made by bulk selling postage, why else would a company like endicia or stamps.com be in business. I seriously dont think companies like these were intended to service a product shipping company, they are more suited for bulk mailing type of stuff where you are mailng the exact same thing, just in bulk.
Now, like ive said, this is how we ended up doing our shipping. We're still new so we can change our procedures without much of a hassle. I think your suggestion is to tape or adfix the vendio invoice to the outside of the box. Then, when you print out shipping labels, you match by ADDRESS and not by item type
Is that the way you guys envisioned how shipping would take place?
Im sure when you guys were builing vendio, you envisioned a certain way to do shipping. If you can enlighten us on how its you guys thought it was to be done, then please let us know.
I would like to clear things up here first by stating my suggestion to affix the shipping invoice and label to a sealed box then match by address has nothing to do with Vendio's ideas on how customers should handle post sales. I made that suggestion based on what was written here:
However, now I have this huge problem. For example, today I have 86 items that need to be shipped out. If I used the dazzle process, I would now have 86 labels and the only information I would have is the freaking name and address of the person. I have no other way to ID who purchased what. I would have to open each 86 packages and start matching one at a time, basically a match me game from hell
I hope this clears things up -- it sounds like both of you are holding on to what I stated, thinking this is how we intended customers to ship their items. Suggestions we make are based on the scenario presented. We do not make customers ship items a certain way -- we strive to make it as easy as possible for customers to streamline post sale operations. Many customers leave the packages open so they can identify what goes where, using a packing invoice in the process. Perhaps other sellers reading this thread will contribute and let you know how they handle shipping.
The problem is indeed with what goes onto the labels by Endicia and Stamps.com. We are currently investigating ways to expand these fields and we will need to work with Endicia and Stamps.com.
Are there custom fields already that allow for the insertion of item numbers or SKU numbers?
posted on December 19, 2005 08:08:09 PM new
How about adding Shipworks to your system.
They have an order management software that works realy well and it would solve a lot of the above problems I think.
Especialy because it is an offline tool.
Thier webpage is http://www.interapptive.com
All you would have to do is give them some software hooks into your code and they could synchronize data.
Small changes compared to writting a complete sollution from scratch.
posted on December 24, 2005 10:55:52 AM new
Hi, here is what i do I SHIPP ALMOST 50 WATCHES daily
Print all your invoices first INVOICE ONLY WITHOUT SHIPPING LABEL , now I asume that in your listings in SMIE you already put in the weight of the item and shipping class and the SKU number for the item , if you have all f these fields set then shipping will become as easy as you can posibly make it.
when you ready to ship your items is all you have to do is print all the invoices and then EXPORT ALL SHIPPING TO USPS AND CHECK THIS BOX Mark Step 5 (Item Shipped) Checked in Post Sale Management.
Now that you have invoices and shipping labels in your hand all you have to do is match the 2 togetr YOUR INVOISE SHOULD TELL YOU WAHT YOU SOLD TO EACH PERSON.
