Bulk Update Of Existing Products In USA Adding Country

[universalcomputers]

Hi guys, had a question about ECrater and the addition of another country to an online store. Our question is if you already have products set up for the USA and wanted to add another country to an already listed item, is there anyway to bulk edit everying instead of doing it manually.

The problem is the second you add a countries shipping matrix, it will immediately place the field in the shipping field telling buyers that the product has free international shipping. That does not give a seller anytime to update pricing to the newly added country.

It seems the only way is to go into each individual product and update the international shipping rate.

For example, we are adding the UK or at least planning on doing so. We added the UK to the shipping zone and immediately the field for the UK appeared. The problem is the products are already listed and it immediately tells UK buyers that we are offering free international shipping to the UK, which is not true. We have been attempting to add the UK pricing on a per item basis.

Is there a quicker way of doing this like the bulk uploader feature, but it clearly states thats for newly added products only. Thanks again.

[MoonwishesStore]

Did you try the global editor? I'm not sure exactly what and how you want to do this, but you can check into it.

[universalcomputers]

That wont work because it does exactly what it states it is a "global editor". The problem is that because of the currency exchange US products are more expensive in the UK. Each item has its own specific shipping rate. If something in the US is $10 and thats a sellers cost, the UK might be set at a high price. So the seller is losing money because there's no independent field for international prices. So whatever the difference is in the product price you have to add that cost to the shipping rate. So each product has its own specific UK shipping rate.

Global editor does things on a "global" aspect. A power supply, for example, might have an international UK shiping rate of $15.99, where as a cellular phone batter might have an international UK shipping rate of $2.99. The Global editor will make every item either $15.99 or $2.99 (whatever you set it to). Each price has to be set individually.

It would be a real pain in the ass, to go into each product and update the pricing for UK shipping rates individually. Then what happens when a seller wants to add another country, shipping rates to another country is either more expensive or less expensive than what you had for the 1st internaitonal country you had. That would mean you'd have to start the process all over again (editiing each product one by one).

The only way you get around that is by starting an online store from scratch. Then comes the time when you have to edit prices and its "here we go again". We're not going to spend the time to do 3x the work for something that could be easily done with an edit from a CSV file, but this site doesnt allow it, only for new products, but for existing products, your screwed.

[MoonwishesStore]

You can use the global editor and if you have cell phones in their own category and each other type of item in their categories. When using the global ediotr you set the prices via each different category, and you can add on to the price of the items using the set UK price, so all cell phones you add on that $2.99 or whatever. It can be done if you set up appropriate categories form the begining. It would still look like 'free' shipping, but your would be getting your shipping amount.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

I need a little more information in order to try to assist. Here's what I've gleaned from what information you've given:
1) You used the eCRATER flat rate shipping for your US shipping where you entered the shipping price on the item page for each item.

2) You would like to begin selling in the UK.

3) When you added the UK to your Shipping Zones chart, a box was added to every item page for the UK shipping for that item.

4) You like the system you have for your US sales.

5) You would like a quicker system for your UK shipping.

My first question would be how did you entered your weight on each item page. Depending on this answer, there are several possibilities. I think you also need to consider your future work load when your shipping provider increases their rates. This might be a good time to give some serious thought to a long range plan for your eCRATER store shipping.

[cosmicray]

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

cosmicray, that was exactly what I was thinking, however if he just "put something" in the weight instead of actual packed weight your suggestion isn't an option. I do think he might want to consider making sure he has accurate packaged weights so he can move toward using USPS calculated for his international shipping. I don't think calculated would work for his US shipping because of the many different shipping locations in the US.

[MoonwishesStore]

He sounded to me like the had rates already figured per category. He also mentioned that his matrix filled itself out or didn't and gave free shipping to international orders. He gets confusing at best.

[universalcomputers]

Thanks guys for your help.

The way we need it done is each product has their own specific price and shipping rate. Its based on the expenses of selling products that go into the pricing.

What is happening is that we already have products about 200 out of 1000 so far, that are all have US Product price and shipping rates. (keep in mind we are using fixed flat rate shipping - not calculated or weight based shipping - every product has their own specific price and shipping rates)

The problem is those 200 products have already shipping rates for US. If you add UK or whatever international country to the existing 200 products, the field for that country comes up immediately and it states that shipping to that country is free. Its going to cause alot of confusing, refunds, and/or possible negative feedback because that international buyer thinks its free shipping.

The only way around it was the following :
1. Use the global editor to set the international shipping rate to something astronomical like $999.99 for shipping. That has to be done for every single product that is already listed and has domestic shipping rates.
2. Then you enable the currency rates for that specific country.
3. The time consuming part...is now you have to go into each product and adjust the international price and shipping rate to whatever you want it to.

Once the currency for that item is activated for that country, you can edit that number with whatever price you want, and the same goes for the shipping.

The problem is that you cant use weigh based or calculation for items because of the pricing and fees associated with that purchase. It will vary from product to product and when the price needs go higher due to supply and demand you have to adjust it.

Ecrater is big on you not being able to do a bulk edit csv file, but at least they should have the ability for a seller to like go into the manage product section and tag whatever products they need to update and long side Google - Picture - delete icons - have the boxes next to the product with the current price & shipping so that a seller can just tab to each field edit each product.

The biggest problem with Ecrater is price fluctuations with items. Sellers will have to spend hours upon days of editing every product especially if they have alot.

[universalcomputers]

The problem with Ecrater is this. Say you have all products listed for US domestic shipping. We'll just use as an example say 100 products.

Now you want to start shipping to England for this example. So you go into the Shipping Zone and add England to the places where you ship to. The next step is doing the currency conversion for England.

Now here's the problem...the second you activate the shipping zone for England, the shipping box shows up for each product with no value. If there's no value in the shipping box, the system automatically tells the buyers that its free shipping, which is not what you want if you want to charge shipping rates for England.

If you dont activate the shipping zone first, you cannot sell to England. So the second you activate any international shipping zone, you have to immediately update those products. One by one, product by product.

To get around that, the whole idea is to prevent buyer's from purchasing the items that mistakingly state free shipping. So you have to use the Global editor to set the shipping rates to say $999.99 so that no one person from England buys that product until you've updated it.

Once the price converter is on and the shipping zone is activated for that country, you can then and only then make your editing.

The only way it someone wouldnt have to edit every single product if they wanted to ship to another country, is have a new online store with all the countries you want to ship to and have a spreadsheet with all your product pricing and shipping rates for all the countries you want to sell to ready before hand.

[SammysSupplies]

Do you think you will inundated with orders from England the minute you decide to ship there? I would guess there will be time to get your shipping rates in. Or just put your store on hold until the shipping rates are inserted. Of course I have no idea if you are getting multiples orders a day that will be missed if you do a hold.

[universalcomputers]

Answer your question, yes got 5 emails in 2 days this week people asking us if we ship to england.

This is the problem we've kept on saying and Sam your missing the point. The fact is if you have your products already setup for the USA and want to add a country, everything is updated immediately. The second you place a country on there, it all reads free shipping until you manually update the items one by one.

With a bulk update you can just do everything in one shot without doing anything. As for you saying put our store on hold, why should we. Your saying loose sales for domestic sales until international items are completed. That doesnt make any sense.

Between converting the pricing from UK to US dollars and trying to add products for domestic, its just got too combersom and complicated. Another problem is when you convert currency the british pound symbol is on the field where you put the pricing for UK. You'd think you placing british pounds in the field when in reality you have to place the US converted rate. So thats misleading.

Everything has to be in US dollars, even though Ecrater shows the british pound symbol next to the field where the funds are to be stated for UK buyers. So threw us off for 25 products when we just out of curiousity when our suspicions. We went to the Uk side and saw the values we thougth were UK pounds being converted to a much lower price that what we wanted. Then we came to the reliazation that Ecrater UK pricing field was misleading.

At that point we at this time its not worth the time. So we are focusing on domestic sales first and once USA is done we'll think about doing UK.

But another thing is that if you dont want to sell a product to the an international country there is no option to prevent international people from buying it. Hense high priced items, which have a high risk overseas from fraud.

Well anyhows, there's no realistic solution until we just do things in order, first being building the store for USA first and then deciding if its worth the trouble of manually converting the pricing.

[SammysSupplies]

It was just a suggestion, nothing more. I am glad you are having that many sales.

[MoonwishesStore]

I think part of the problem is you are seeing problems where most of us don't have them. I rarely ever change a price. If something sells out and I find a replacement, I might consider changing the price depending on its rarity and how much it cost me. But pricing of the item doesn't even begin to effect the shipping cost. If I know something might take extra special packaging I might add that into the price, otherwise shipping and handling is shipping and handling.

I don't understand what you said about putting the price into the listing for the UK price and having the price come up wrong. I multiply my US price by the current exchange rate that I'm using and that is the price I put into my listing for UK prices and do the same thing for the AU prices. I just double checked my latest listing on both my US and UK sites and for something that I'm charging $8.99US and the amount calculated with the exchange rate is 6.20 GBP on my US site and the UK site comes up with that same price. I've been selling internationally here since I started and always have gotten the exchange rate correct, unless I goofed inputting the actual number -- but that fluke earned me an extra $4 and made me realize that I could sell a particular brand for more than I thought so that error has earned me a lot of money since then on all my sites.

One of the reasons that I really try to get new sellers here to spend some time researching this site prior to joining up or at least starting to list, is so that they can think through the different aspects of what is available and to decide if they want to sell internationally is also another thing they can think about and make a decision about whether or not they want to do so. It saves a lot of backtracking in the end.

I just looked through your different categories and currently I didn't see anything over the price of $60 and for the most part the majority of your items are under $20 and are small lightweight items so the thing you said about having to charge $999.99 for international shipping is a HUGE exaggeration! Most of your items could actually be packaged very safely in a Priority Flat rate small box which would be somewhere in the $20 range or a plain package safely packaged would be less than a pound and if under 13 oz could go via First Class mail. As I had mentioned before, you can set prices in the Global Editor which should be close enough until you have a chance to tweak your listings to be more slowly changed for each exact item. This is a doable thing and many have done it before you.

[universalcomputers]

No problem Sammy. Thanks for the input. We're driving ourselves stir crazy with this UK stuff. First we did the UK pounds in the pricing and shipping field. then thought we needed to place the US dollar equivalent in the field. now going to the co.uk side of our online store, we're seeing the US equivalent being shown on the UK side.

So we need some clearification, something tells us we should be placing the UK pounds inside this field as we always thought from the beginning.

Again, thats for all you guys help!