[ic] Shipping & Real-time Integration to UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc

[Daniel Browning]

* Daniel Browning <db at kavod.com> [2005-09-13 16:57]:
> * Melissa <intrchng-list at outfitters.com> [2005-09-13 13:15]:
> > From perusing the list archives, I gather that tying into
> > the real-time shipping modules for UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc, was
> > not recommended due to unreliability and slow responses from
> > those systems?
> > 
> > Are the response times / reliability still problematic?  Is
> > anyone using the real-time services?
> 
> It depends on what you consider to be reliable.  During the 2004 shopping
> season (Nov-Dec), UPS slowed down considerably, and many requests errored
> out over a period of several hours (on more than one occasion).
> 
> > If you're using your own shipping tables (as we are), what method do you
> > use to keep up with the changes in rates & fuel surcharges?
> 
> [Warning: shameless plug follows.]
> 
> Business::Shipping comes with 2005 offline tables for UPS as well as scripts
> to screen-scrape the new fuel surcharges every month.  I wrote a tool to
> convert the tables when UPS updates them once per year, but I've yet to
> release it (no one has asked, and I haven't gotten any round tuits).

OK, I got around to it and released the tool to CPAN.  It's name is 
Business::Shipping::DataTools, and the download can be found here:

http://www.kavod.com/Business-Shipping/

If you have a strong stomach, you can look at all the contortions it goes
through to get the UPS data into a format that is fast for lookups.

In addition, I refactored the "screen-scrape new fuel surcharges" script
and released Business-Shipping-2.01.

-- 
Daniel Browning <db at kavod.com> - Kavod Technologies.  Random Fortune:
Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
for a dial tone.