[computergeek2011]

Hello, I am trying to build a fully automated site with drop shippers. I want it so if someone places a order, the site will automatically send the information on to the drop shippers that will then forward the item on to the customer. any ideas on how i would do this?

[brightonmike]

WTH is a drop shipper?

[lewis12]

As far as i'm aware drop shipping is where there is an eCommerce store that might have an office but no actual stock/warehouse, when someone places an order the store forward the order to a supplier who sends it out to the customer.

As to the OP Question i'm not too sure it's possible some of the more MySql/PHP boffins might be able to suggest something that will work though.

Lewi

[Dx3webs]

Magneto with this extension will do the trick

http://www.magentoco...pping-component

[rallport]

Dx3webs, on 17 August 2011 - 06:52 PM, said:

Magneto with this extension will do the trick

http://www.magentoco...pping-component

Er, have you actually seen the price......

[computergeek2011]

rallport, on 24 August 2011 - 10:45 PM, said:

Er, have you actually seen the price......

haha yea i agree about outta my league

[Afternoon Sun]

I am not 100% sure if this is the one you are looking for. But this is worth a try.

Doba Drop Ship
Shipwire

Enjoy.

[Sogo7]

Take a look at a PHP extension called cURL, most good webhosts have it pre installed.

This will enable you to use your website server to mimic a web browser sending information to the shippers order form/page.

On the flipside cURL can also read the page source of the shippers website, then by using the regex commands in PHP the prices of items can be extracted as variables. These can then be tweeked to add your profit margin and then displayed on your site. So you don't make a loss if the shippers prices go up unexpectedly.

You can also set up email alerts to warn you of changes to delivery prices and Terms of Service etc using this system.

This is of course a gross over-simplification, sending information to the shippers order form can get complicated if they have things like session tokens for security and retrieving item prices aka 'site scraping' from the shippers website is often not as simple as it first appears. However it is do able.

It's an interesting project and hope this helped.

[rallport]

Sogo7, on 28 August 2011 - 01:41 AM, said:

This is of course a gross over-simplification, sending information to the shippers order form can get complicated if they have things like session tokens for security and retrieving item prices aka 'site scraping' from the shippers website is often not as simple as it first appears. However it is do able.

You'll also find that drop shippers use a variety of methods and protocols - I've just finished an ecommerce site that used a XML to make the shipping request. Each shipper will have their preffered method. I dare say that's why the magento plugin is so expensive - or is just because it's magento?

[greyhat]

rallport, on 28 August 2011 - 09:31 AM, said:

You'll also find that drop shippers use a variety of methods and protocols - I've just finished an ecommerce site that used a XML to make the shipping request. Each shipper will have their preffered method. I dare say that's why the magento plugin is so expensive - or is just because it's magento?

I hate magento! lol.

Please, computergeek2011 let me know how you are getting on, i have a dropshipping site set up as my pet project (2 sales so far! ) and i want to learn about automating this stuff etc too!

[Sogo7]

There is a package called 'Djuggler' designed for automated content retrieval and online form filling, the free version has a few limitations but some may find it useful. The downside however it does not create an output script that could be uploaded to a server but rather an executable file that has to run on a local (windows) PC.

[rallport]

greyhat, on 31 August 2011 - 12:11 AM, said:

I hate magento! lol.

Please, computergeek2011 let me know how you are getting on, i have a dropshipping site set up as my pet project (2 sales so far! ) and i want to learn about automating this stuff etc too!

Well that's the thing thus whole area is totally bespoke and I dare say that's why such modules are so expensive - it all depends on the actual drop shipper and their protocols.

[greyhat]

rallport, on 02 September 2011 - 09:11 AM, said:

Well that's the thing thus whole area is totally bespoke and I dare say that's why such modules are so expensive - it all depends on the actual drop shipper and their protocols.

Yes it will vary from site to site... My plan is to get the sales up first and do it all manually.. then invest time / money if it pans out.

[necrobyter]

There's numerous ways to achieve this, depends on what services your drop shipper has..

If they have the ability to receive form posts etc you can use Curl, if they have web services you can extensions for most e-commerce software to do that.

If you provide more info on who your shipping company are I might be able to tell you what you need to do.