Zen Cart
Combine Shipwire storage and order fulfillment and Zen Cart shopping cart to a complete eCommerce solution!
Shipwire storage and order fulfillment and Zen Cart shopping cart now work together. This integration supports real-time and manual submission of orders from a Zen Cart store to the Shipwire Store-Sell-Ship(tm) platform as well as real time Shipping Rating. Your Shipwire account will then capture the order and route it to the optimal Shipwire warehouse based on your customers location. In addition, the Real Time Shipping Rating will quote your customer shipping rates based on the optimal warehouse as well.
IMPORTANT: Like most Zen-cart modules the installation of the Shipwire Sell Tool requires you to upload files to your web server and to make simple edits to your Zen-cart PHP files. While not difficult to do, we would not necessarily recommend doing this if you are not comfortable working with PHP files on your server. If you are not then we highly recommend finding a web developer that can assist you.
Follow these instructions to add Shipwire warehouse and order fulfillment module to your Zen Cart store:
1. Start by logging into your Shipwire account. If you don’t have a Shipwire account please start by setting up a Free Trial account.
2. Add the Zen Cart sell tool.
Go to the “Store” menu in your Shipwire account and add Zen Cart as a “Sell Tool”. This will automatically add the installation wizard for the Shipwire Zen Cart Module. Once added you will see a link to your Zen Cart sell tool in the left menu.
3. Click on the Zen-Cart link. This page includes a link to download the Zen-cart module you install on your server.
Next we install the Shipwire Module in your Zen-cart installation on your server.
4. Download the Zencart Store Ship Sell .ZIP module for your cart version. For Zencart versions later than 1.3.8 use this version for your install.
Uncompress this on your local hard drive. Be sure to preserve the directories for the files so they stay organized. Please open the INSTALLATION.TXT file in your editor. Be sure to carefully follow ALL instructions in the installation readme file. If you have a later version of Zencart you may need to adjust the specific line numbers needed to be edited.
5. After you have copied and edited your server files be sure to Install the Shipwire module in Zencart.
6. Once installed then configure the Shipping Rating module and specify what shipping types you want to have enabled.
7. In the Shipwire Module configuration generate the Secret Key. You will enter this key in your Shipwire account configuration for Zen-cart.
8. You can use the Shipwire module in either Test or Production mode. Generally test mode is for developers. While in Test mode any orders will automatically be deleted after a day. In production mode your orders will test.
NOTE: Some functionality may not work correctly while in Test mode. Be sure to use Production Mode for all your final integration testing. Also be sure to monitor your Shipwire account carefully during this time.
Final Configuration in your Shipwire Account.
8. Paste the Secret Key into your Shipwire Account. In addition Shipwire can automatically fulfill orders received from Zen Cart (check box) or leave box unchecked for you to manually log-in, validate orders and send them to the warehouse(s). Be sure to save your configuration.
9. Create a test order in your Zen Cart account. If you enabled Shipwire Real Time Shipping Ratings you will see specific carriers and cost quoted for your shipment during checkout. After Checkout your order will appear in your Shipwire account after several minutes.
Zen-cart FAQ’s
Q – I completed my Zencart integration and have configured it but my orders do not appear. How can I fix that?
A – There are several common problems that may keep your Shipwire integration from working properly:
- Your email address and password do not exactly match your Shipwire account login
- The Secret Key is not correct, or entered incorrectly. Be sure there are no trailing spaces in your Secret key in Shipwire
- Your server can not communicate with our servers. On your server, please test the following URL:https://api.shipwire.com/exec/FulfillmentServices.php – Upon executing this URL you should receive the following XML:
Q — After I place an order on Zen-cart how long does it take before the order appears on my Shipwire account
- A — If you select Automatic Order Fulfillment in your Zen-cart Shipwire module your order will be pushed automatically upon checkout. If Automatic Checkout is not selected then you need to go to your Zen-cart Order Manager and bring up your order. You will see a button allowing your order to be sent to Shipwire.
Q — Sometimes my order does not show up in Shipwire. What is wrong?
A — If, at the time your Zen-cart tries to push the order to Shipwire, there is an internet connection problem note that there is no automatic re-try functionality in Zencart. Orders are only pushed once. In this case you will need to manually enter your order in your Shipwire account.
Q — The Real Time Shipping module doesn’t work sometimes. What is wrong?
A — The Real Time Shipping module uses the Shipwire Rating API directly to get rating requests. The most common problem is trying to rate shipments with SKU’s that Shipwire does not have defined or has never had inventory for. In this case we cannot determine the weight or dimensions of what is being shipped in order to properly quote shipping rates. A good rule of thumb is if you can see the SKU in the Shipwire Manage Inventory view then it can be rated for shipment.
Q – Is my inventory automatically updated when I receive a new ASN in my Shipwire account?
A – Inventory management in not part of the Zen-cart integration.
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Last Update: 1/6/2010