Shipping rates

[Shawn]

I'm developing an e-commerc website and now that I am
working on the shipping portion, I wanted to know what is
the best way to get shipping rates so that they always
appear current on your website without using any
components.

Thanks

 

[Aaron Bertrand - MVP]

For a client I've been managing their web site, I created a table, based on
a shipping rates downloadable from ups.com.

In four years, I've had to update the table twice. Once when UPS rates
changed, and once because the client wanted to raise the "handling" part of
the fee.

No components, just a table of zip codes and zones, cross-referenced by
weight, to calculate shipping cost. (The logic is buried in a stored
procedure.)