I've looked at a *lot* of eCommerce solutions while building StoreSuite, and the one thing that 99.99% of them lack is usability - that is, they aren't easy to use. This is especially true when it comes to integrating shipping providers. Why should it be hard to integrate shipping into your eCommerce shop?

I've spent the last few days building the shipping modules for StoreSuite. So far UPS and Australia post are integrated with USPS, CanadaPost, FedEx and Intershipper to come later in the week.

Today I just wanted to share a few screenshots with you that demonstrate how shipping integration works. I spent quite a bit of time working on the usability for shipping as I feel it's *the* most difficult thing to setup in other eCommerce solutions.



Here's the main shipping settings page. It appears when you click on the Settings -> Shipping Settings menu option. Nothing special here. You specify your location (which is used by the shipping providers as the base point of pickup) and can choose which countries you want to accept orders from. You also choose which shipping modules you want available from your store under the "Available Providers" section.



Certain shipping modules only work in certain countries, and StoreSuite factors this in. For example, if you set your location to USA and try to select the Australia Post shipping method then you'll see a message telling you that it's only available in Australia.



Here's the UPS settings tab. You'll notice the white "UPS" tab. All shipping modules you enable will appear along here, so it takes just one click to configure any of your shipping providers. The "Custom Shipping Methods" will allow you to define other shipping types such as free shipping, $x shipping if the order is over $x, etc.



After you configure a shipping provider you can click the "Test Shipping Provider" link to generate a live shipping quote. You simply fill in a form specifying weight of the package (and optionally physical dimensions and number of packages for certain shippers) and click "Get Quote". You'll then see a live shipping quote, or an error if something went wrong.

The shipping modules (and eventually the payment provider modules when they're done) are very easy to customize and if required you could add your own shipping provider in about half an hour.

I'll also be adding the option to include a handling fee for each order. You'll have the option to display the handling fee separately or as part of the shipping cost too.