UPS Shipping Tools

[Jason Burr]

Has anybody used the UPS tools for calculating shipping and if so how did
they go about it? I have seen the articles on 4guysfromrolla but that
appears to be using xml component to get the data from the ups site rather
than using the developers tools provided by UPS.

I am just not sure the best way to go about this. Anybody with experience
using this who could give me some pointers would be greatly appreciated. On
their site if you dont sign up then you dont get any specs on the tools
other then the standard ad crap. I have also seen some components that want
to charge for this apparently free service so thats not something I am
interested in.

I would also be interested in info about the USPS and FedEx too but found no
similar tools on their sites.

Thanks in advance,

Jason

 

[Keith E.]

I looked into the USP tools and they were such a pain
(lots of hoops the jump and brandign rules to comply with)
that we dropped them from our e-commerce solution and went
with FedEx.

The FedEx tools and integration infomation can be obtained
from http://www.fedex.com/us/solutions/fsmapi.html

The have a API for applications and a Direct for Websites.

For Websites use the Ship Manager Direct connect
http://www.fedex.com/us/solutions/wis/index.html/ Its
basically a Tag inteface and they have COM objects to
interface with it if you are on a MS IIS platform.

We are on a PHP platform and I located a open source PHP
class to communicate with their interface.

Once you understand the Tags and the server responses
(well documented in a 112 page PDF), its straight forward
to get connected.

Their 7 step implementation process does have a few hoops
to jump (paperwork) to get qualified to use their service.
But its less cumbersome that UPS.

Hope this helps.

Keith E.