Would you consider Postage a type of Shipping option?

[FreightTrain]

All,

We are in the midst of some re-organization of the Manager and internally we are having a debate about Postage. Specifically would you associate Postage more with Pricing (as you define the relevant Postage Costs) or Shipping options (like Custom, Auto or Carrier Shipping)?

 

If you were looking to define Postage for a Product would you look for it in a Shipping or a Pricing section?

 

Thanks in advance for your input!!

[jmstoll]

I would vote for Shipping option.

[LesSjo]

Ditto...

Shipping.

[Brian F.]

If postage was moved to the shipping section, could it then be set up in one place for all the stores and applied with just a click on a check box like the different auto shipping methods?

 

With the way it is handled now, it has to be set for each price break on a product and can't be done on the same screen as pricing is set. Also, when a product is copied, the postage does not copy along with the rest of the pricing. Painful on both counts.

 

Either section would be fine as long as it is consistent with the way that section is set up. The quasi-pricing way it is handled now is kind of cumbersome.

[FreightTrain]

Brian,

The set up is not changing at all, the section is just getting moved.

[-Lisa-]

Definitely shipping. If we're charging postage that means a piece is being mailed. That's its ship method.

[jleger]

I think postage is perfect where it is, as the unit cost can change per quantity/price point (for those of us who offer postal presort discounts). Additionally, we include data processing and mail shop charges in postage as they are non-taxable services (and that per unit pricing can change based on quantity as well).

 

Thinking a little more about this debate, and where FP Web could head in the future, if a customer is allowed to order 'overs' of the mailing to be shipped back to them, how would this be accomplished (i.e. can both postage and shipping be enabled).

 

What we would really like to see more integration of postage selection into the template versioning in order to change the indicia on the fly (first class vs. standard). Not having this currently, we end up manually editing the proof with the appropriate indicia for the selected postage class.

 

-Joe

[FreightTrain]

Jleger,

None of the pricing or functionality aspect of Postage is changing, just where it resides in the Manager. As mentioned, we are in the midst of re-organizing like sections together.

 

Overs is something that we have been considering, to this point I do not know where or if it lies on the roadmap.

 

As far as the on the fly indicia is concerned, this can be done right now. In a very simplistic manner all you need to establish is a record count to determine the correct type of indicia. Here is a sample of how you could achieve this with a couple rules:

 

1) create an OnJobStart rule:

 

//This checks to see if the record count exceeds 200

indicia = FusionPro.Composition.endRecordNumber - FusionPro.Composition.startRecordNumber >= Int("200")

 

2) This is a graphic rule which returns the appropriate indicia image for the respective graphic frame.

 

//if indicia is true

if (indicia)

{

return Resource("FirstClassPresort.jpg");

}

 

//if indicia is false

else

{

return Resource("PlaceStampHere.jpg");

}

This could probably be established several ways, but this one is pretty simple.

 

Hope this helps

[jleger]

Hi Rich- thanks for your response re: postage functionality isn't changing.

 

Regarding postage and the indicia, it's not always just a matter of quantity that determines postage class-- a customer can elect to mail an entire mailing at first class if they desire and we have clients doing this on a regular basis. You are correct that at below 200 it must be stamped, but after that quantity you can do standard presort; at 500 it can additionally be first-class presorted. So, lot's of different options to drive the interaction between postage selection and the indicia (and that doesn't even cover other postage options like priority drop ship...).

 

We have used a similar script for one of our portals that allows less than 200 pieces and contractually goes standard presort after that. Outside of that portal, it becomes an additional QC step to ensure that the correct indicia gets printed.

 

Thanks!

 

-Joe