Image via WikipediaHowever, shipping options usually come as optional components and you usually need to do some configuration to get them working just right. The big players (such as Royal Mail, FedEx and UPS) provide various API for you to add to your shipping options. For example, within the configuration for your BigCommerce store you can add various shipping methods. Now, as I am a UK company I use Royal Mail by default. I have been running my web-site for several months now and had no problems, until just the other day. A customer wanted to order two Wi-Fires but every time they tried to choose the shipping option, they got an error message saying it wasn't possible to ship to their destination. Where are they... no not some obscure country of the former Soviet Union. Nope, they live in Sweden. So, when they emailed me (big relief as they could have just gone elsewhere and I'd be none the wiser), I logged into my site and tried to buy something and ship it to Sweden. Yep, there was indeed an issue.
I tried a couple of countries, including Norway and the same problem came up. I tried changing the settings to calculate shipping based on the states within each country... still no joy. I even went and signed up for FedEx's web services (I already have an account) so I could add them as a shipping option. I went back and tried with shipping via FedEx and still no joy for Sweden. So, as I am no developer, I did three things:
1. I emailed the customer and agreed to send her an invoice via PayPal and for her trouble I would ship for free. She agreed and that's what I did. One very happy customer. I, however, was still unhappy as my site is supposed to handle all of this with no problem!
2. I submitted a support ticket to FedEx about the error messages I was getting.
3. I submitted a support ticket to BigCommerce outlining the problems I was having.
Now, to be totally honest I wasn't exactly impressed with the response to my support tickets. FedEx simply confirmed the error message I was getting and suggested I get in touch with BigCommerce. BigCommerce, for their part said.... nothing, nada, zilch. For more than 48 hours I had no response.
Once they did get in touch they initially did the same as FedEx and simply confirmed what I already knew. I therefore replied that I was a somewhat unhappy bunny and that as I ship to Europe I needed the shipping options to allow me to just that. They then went and looked deeper, did some tweaking and sorted the problem out as far as Royal Mail goes (at least for Sweden and a few other countries I have tested that all now work). As for FedEx as an option, still no joy so I have now deleted that option from my store.
In reality, although some customers may have liked FedEx as an option, I find Royal Mail is invariably cheaper for most destinations.
So, the title to this post talks about postcodes so why have I been prattling on about my trials and tribulations with shipping options. Well, there is a reason. As I said, its important to test things out to make sure they work as intended. However, when you test the shipping options out (either in BigCommerce or on the FedEx site) they ask you for a postcode (ZIP code in the US). Well, I am British and I know how postcodes are formatted here but for Sweden or Norway or anywhere else almost I am just guessing. So, where can you find a postcode for say Bergen in Norway? Well, you could do one of two things... use an address of a previous customer. But what if you don't have any customers from Norway? The second option is to use Google and find sites that provide the postcodes. Now, usually each country will have an official site that does this. For Norway this would be http://epab.posten.no/Engelsk/. this site is an great example of how every country should do it. Simply type in the first letter of the street name and it comes up with a list of streets in Norway starting with that letter and their postcodes. How cool is that!
For Switzerland and Liechtenstein try https://match.postmail.ch/match_zip?SIT_ID=5&SPRCDE=4
You can even download a pdf that explains how all the postcodes are structured. In addition you can download various data files. The postcode index MAT[CH]zip contains all postcodes in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein that are valid for addressing purposes. It is generated in various forms. This service is free of charge.
Using these resources its possible to test your shipping options with real postcode data and so be sure you are getting the right responses. All we need now is someone to create a site listing all the official sites that provide postcode data!
