Drop Ship

[hi5]

Interested you just posted that yesterday. I was looking for the answer to the same question just now.

I guess I need more information on how to automate this process.

Would the ruby application 1) peridiodically download the xml feed 2) extract email address for vendor and message 3) send message

I think it is faily easy to do 2 and 3 in ruby (parsing the xml and then sending an email) but I haven’t tried to subscribe to an xml feed in ruby (maybe using http://simple-rss.rubyforge.org/ and cron). Anyways, if it is a simple script, this sounds like the right direction, and you can provide me with a sample order’s xml data, I’ll write it and put it up here for others to use.

Also if you are faxing orders, there are services that send email attachments to fax numbers in the body.

[mel_pennington]

If you guys find a solution to this problem, we would love to know. I’m not a programmer so there isn’t much I can help with in Ruby, I do have a friend that is looking into the problem. Please email me and let me know if you find anything! Thanks, Mel

[hi5]

hey mel, could you post the format for a typical xml order on from your store? you can change the data, just need the format. See yoursite/admin/feed/orders (i can’t create orders yet on my site). Make sure the order has a supplier’s e-mail or fax field.

[mel_pennington]

hi5, not sure if I follow. Here is anexcerpt from the xml feed:

<rss version="2.0">
−
    <channel>
<title>Orders for Pennington & Bailes</title>
−
    <link>
http://penningtonandbailes.myshopify.com/admin/orders
</link>
<description>Recent orders</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<ttl>40</ttl>
−
    <item>
<title>Order #1073</title>
−
    <link>
http://penningtonandbailes.myshopify.com/admin/orders/show/1234
</link>
<guid isPermaLink="false">62ac46d3d09edc0473f3831a47d798b9</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:48:27 +0000</pubDate>
−
    <description>
Order by JANE Doe placed at 2006-07-11 05:48PM
</description>
<shopify:order_id>1234</shopify:order_id>
<shopify:guid>62ec46d3d09edc0473f3831a47d798b9</shopify:guid>
<shopify:email>jdoe@sc.rr.com</shopify:email>
<shopify:status>paid</shopify:status>
<shopify:closed_at/>
<shopify:created_at>Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:48:27 +0000</shopify:created_at>
<shopify:updated_at>Wed, 12 Jul 2006 02:25:10 +0000</shopify:updated_at>
−
    <shopify:note>
Click on the Edit link to your left to jot down your notes about this order.
</shopify:note>
<shopify:shipping_title>Standard Shipping</shopify:shipping_title>
<shopify:total_price>149.67</shopify:total_price>
<shopify:subtotal_price>135.00</shopify:subtotal_price>
<shopify:total_tax>6.17</shopify:total_tax>
<shopify:total_weight>680</shopify:total_weight>
<shopify:shipping_price>8.50</shopify:shipping_price>
<shopify:payments_total>149.67</shopify:payments_total>
−
    <shopify:billing_address>
<shopify:first_name>JANE</shopify:first_name>
<shopify:last_name>Doe</shopify:last_name>
<shopify:address1>123 Outtamy way</shopify:address1>
<shopify:address2/>
<shopify:phone>800-555-5555</shopify:phone>
<shopify:city>AnyCity</shopify:city>
<shopify:zip>29555</shopify:zip>
<shopify:province>South Carolina</shopify:province>
<shopify:country>United States</shopify:country>
</shopify:billing_address>
−
    <shopify:shipping_address>
<shopify:first_name>JANE</shopify:first_name>
<shopify:last_name>Doe</shopify:last_name>
<shopify:address1>123 outtamy way</shopify:address1>
<shopify:address2/>
<shopify:phone>800-555-5555</shopify:phone>
<shopify:city>ANYCITY</shopify:city>
<shopify:zip>29555</shopify:zip>
<shopify:province>South Carolina</shopify:province>
<shopify:country>United States</shopify:country>
</shopify:shipping_address>
−
    <shopify:line_items>
−
    <shopify:line_items>
<shopify:sku>10000409936</shopify:sku>
<shopify:line_title>University of Georgia</shopify:line_title>
<shopify:variant_title>36 X Unfinished</shopify:variant_title>
<shopify:quantity>1</shopify:quantity>
<shopify:price>135.00</shopify:price>
<shopify:tax>6.17</shopify:tax>
<shopify:vendor>Product</shopify:vendor>
<shopify:grams>680</shopify:grams>
</shopify:line_items>
</shopify:line_items>
</item>
−

[Christopher_Ree]

I’d like to see a service like shipwire.com, where you can automatically send orders right to them.

I believe there are some modules for osCommerce and the CRE loaded osCommerce templates (I’m sure there others) that tie directly to shipwire.

I think Shopify’s interface and concept is much nicer, and I realize it’s new and will evolve.. but a shipping supplier, and hooks into fed-ex, ups, etc., for tracking would be nice as well.

[hi5]

I have some code in ruby that will email your orders and fax them if you pay for a email to fax service. if you want to try it out email me at twopair at gmail dot com. works pretty well for me but need some people to chek it out before i post it…

[hi5]

Also need to write something to prevent e-mailing an order more than once. Once you check the rss feed, is there a way to remove entries you have processed? (Or do they expire themselves after a certain time?) If there isn’t a way to remove entries, the program might have to keep track of what orders it has processed.

[Addison]

I’ve commented on drop shipping here (not to double post, here is the link:) http://forums.shopify.com/categories/1/posts/11485#comment-11514

Good point.

I would be interested to see how such a script would work.

[Guy15]

www.myshopkart.net is a service similar to shopify but where everything from your dropshippers sites are in sync live time. I used to have it but it had horrible designs, shopify is better in that regard.

[Addison]

This is how americommerce does it:

Drop Shipping
AmeriCommerce features Drop Shipping capabilities to automatically break up orders containing products from multiple drop shippers and sends customized email notifications to the fulfillment warehouses.

http://www.americommerce.com/store/pg/19-Order-Processing-Fulfillment-Shopping-Cart-Features.aspx