>Hi, Jim, and thanks for the reply.
>
>>How are they shipping, by commercial carrier or some other means? If commercial
>>carrier, you should be able to get zone definitions and rates from them that will
>>tie into zip codes.
>
>Commercial trucking companies, with various rates depending on the
>type of truck used. Currently, the guys in the shipping deparment
>are going on-line and looking up the driving distance on google maps
>(or some other site..Shrug), and then they're inserting that value
>into the local VFP database associated with the app. So, the app
>looks to see if the distance already exists, and if it does, then
>it displays the value on screen. If not, then the end user has to
>go to the web and get the value. This takes a bit of time, and I'm
>trying to remove every little bit of time-consuming UI problems.
>Proper placement of sorts in a listbox or combobox are wonders
>for end users, especially if it saves them time. The way I figure it,
>a minute saved here and a minute save there makes an end user happy.
>
>
>As far as the zones go...is this standard practice in shipping?
>Zipcode to zipcode is how most rates are calculated?
>
>Also, UPS provided us with some kind of shipping database app. Now I'm
>wondering if I can pull the thing into VFP or MySQL and get the
>info I need? I'll have to read their EULA to make sure I'm not
>stepping on toes, of course.
>
>
>Later, and Regards....
>
>Randall

Randall,

My experience is mostly with UPS and I just assumed that other carriers used similar methods to determine their rates. But, obviously, you'd have to check with the individual carriers to verify that.

We get two types of csv files from UPS to calculate their rates. The first is a separate file for each set of postal codes we are shipping from that has destination code ranges in the first column and then zone numbers beside it for each type of shipment, ie., Ground, 3 Day Select, etc. Just the first 3 digits of the postal code are used and usually they span a range. So the first line of the file for our main shipping zone looks like this:

Dest. Zone Ground 3 Day Select 2nd Day Air 2nd Day Air AM Next Day Air Saver Next Day Air
004-005 3 303 203 243 133 103

Then, we get a second csv for each shipment type that lists the rates by weight for each of the zones.

Both of these get imported into our SQL Server tables which are used to calculate shipping charges on our sales.

HTH,