Background
Selling items that ship via freight online can be a complicated configuration. Fortunately UltraCart integrates with Freightquote.com to provide the lowest cost rate calculation across a wide range of customers. This tutorial will walk you through the process of setting up Freightquote.com for a complex environment such as selling ladders online.
Configuring Your Freightquote.com Account in UltraCart
First you'll need to visit http://www.freightquote.com and apply for an account. Visit their website and click the "Signup and Start Shipping" link shown in the picture below.
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Field | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
Username | The Freightquote.com API username. | Yes |
Password | The Freightquote.com API password. | Yes |
Preferred Carriers | The name(s) of the carriers that you prefer to ship with (one per line). If this field is configured UltraCart will choose the cheapest method from the carriers on this list. | No |
Setting up Shipping Methods
The next step in the configuration process is to setup the LTL shipping method associated with Freightquote.com. First navigate to the shipping methods section:
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Select real-time calculation by Freightquote.com and click Save as shown below.
Setup of Packages
Packages are the containers that UltraCart's shipping system fits into for shipping calculations. For our example we need to setup a number of different packages to represent pallets holding different length ladders. Each pallet within our example is a 36" x 36" pallet. Each different package will be configured to hold a different length from 36" to 300" (That is one tall ladder!).
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Click Save. You will want to repeat this process for as many different packages as you need. In this example we have configured packages ranging from 36" to 300". Notice that there is a "Copy" button beside each package. This makes it incredibly fast to replicate the configuration of one pallet and adjust only the one dimension and description.
Basic Item Setup
When you are shipping freight it is CRITICAL to specify the:
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Now click the save button located at the bottom of the page. This covers the basic additional requirements for a freight item.
Crates that Ship Separately
Some freight items are large and ship in their own crate. For items that fall into this category there are a few more configuration changes that need to be made in addition to the basic freight item explained above. On the shipping tab of the item editor select the ship separately checkbox and then configure the additional options as shown below. In this example we are going to ship a 10 foot ladder that is in a crate.
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Notice that when the Ship Separately box is checked an additional options section appears. Although the item itself is configured as 120" x 36" x 36" we are specifying that the box this ships in is 126" x 36" x 36". The box dimensions are the figures that will be communicated to Freightquote.com. The create itself also weighs an additional 50 lbs. Finally we select the Package Special Type. In this case we are dealing with a Crate. It is critical to select one of the pallets or create for the special type when dealing with Freightquote.com shipments.
Batch Item Import/Export
In this tutorial we have covered numerous Item Configuration settings. We recommend using the Batch Item Import and Batch Item Export tools located under the Item Management menu to batch change these settings.
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