Realtime shipping in Australia

[jmdaus]

Real time shipping for Australia is very much overdue for some attention, I notice that this is currently in the USA but not available in Aus. 

I have seen plenty of suggestions to use third party providers but none of them currently integrate with Square to give a real time cost for shipping. 

I have setup prices based on location however this ultimately will not give you a real cost to ship due to weight. This is costing me money that as a small business would be better back in my profits to grow with. 

does square have any plans to bring this to the Australian market like the Americans currently get? 

[Laurie_]

Hi there @jmdaus,

Thanks for taking the time to add your vote for real-time shipping options through Square Online for Australian Sellers. 

While I'm unable to share a timeline with you, the ability to have real-time shipping directly through Square Online is still very much on our radar. Once we have more news to share on this in future, we'll be sure to post an update to the Seller Community.

There are a few things I can recommend in the meantime. The first, if you haven't already, would be to join the Australian Beta Community. There are different groups you can join, such as Square Online, that will allow you to test new features ahead of their official launch. During the testing period, you can offer your direct feedback to our Product Team which helps us to iron out any wrinkles with these new features.

While real-time shipping isn't directly available through Square Online at this time, another option you could look into is connecting Shippo to Square Online in order to achieve this. You can set up a Shippo integration to automate your shipping, sync orders and get access to rates and real-time price comparisons from top carriers, like Australia Post (account required), Fastway, Sendle and DHL. 

Check out this option and let me know if you have any further questions here. 😊

[jmdaus]

Sorry that doesn’t work. Have tried it before and although it will send I for Marion over to shippo from square (sometimes) it’s live real-time shipping that’s more important. I need square to integrate with aus post or aramex to let the customer know the actual cost of shipping. 
surely it’s not too hard. You have it for the USA market. 

[Laurie_]

Sorry to hear those suggestions won't work for you, @jmdaus!

I'll continue to pass on the feedback we receive for this feature to our Product Team. Should we have updates to share in future, we'll be sure to tag and comment in this thread. 👍

[jmdaus]

Thanks @Laurie_ appreciate you trying to help anyway. 

well keep an eager eye out for this hopefully soon 🤞

[Laurie_]

You're most welcome, @jmadaus!

I ran this by my team and we're currently doing some digging here for an update as to whether this is on the roadmap for Australia. I'm hoping to receive an update early next week (following the Australia Day public holiday). 

I'll loop back to you on this thread once I hear more. 

[Laurie_]

Hello again @jmdaus,

After hearing back from my team, it doesn't look like this feature is on the roadmap to be introduced to Australian markets this year. In the meantime, the Shippo integration has been recommended as an alternative but I know you've said you've given this a try and it doesn't resolve the real-time shipping issues.

Sorry, I don't have better news for you at this time. I've lodged your feedback with our team and hopefully, the more requests we receive for this feature, the more priority it is given on the development timeline.

Should we receive further updates here throughout the course of the year, we'll be sure to tag and comment in this thread.

[OakfieldDesigns]

Hi @Laurie_ , and thankyou @jmdaus for raising this request. I'm having a very similar experience with doing shipping rates in AUS, and I am badly in need of real time shipping costs calculated to the customer during checkout. 

I too had a good look at Shippo, but it doesn't appear to do what I need. Shippo picks up orders after the customer has already paid. I want to automatically calculate a shipping cost based on Australia Post's rates while the customer is checking out, and charge them the appropriate amount. 

In the mean time I have set up some shipping profiles by weight to each Australian state (a very time consuming process). This works OK for every state except for the state in which I live (Victoria) - as I can only set a price for the whole state, but the actual shipping price varies significantly depending on whether I'm going just down the road or across the state. Customers are savvy and sensitive to shipping prices - they know where I am dispatching from and so they have a sense of how much the shipping should cost. If I over charge the close customers this turns them off, if I undercharge the distant customers then I lose money. 

I feel that this is a significant gap in Square's offering for Australian merchants that is enough for me to consider alternative eCommerce platforms that do a better job of this. 

I am a software engineer by career and am happy to contribute to implementation of this feature as a contractor, if that is an option. 

Thanks!

[Arie]

Thank you for sharing this feedback, @OakfieldDesigns. This is definitely an often-requested feature, and I'm continuing to highlight how important it is to our sellers in the Australian market with our team. 

[jmdaus]

@OakfieldDesigns I fear that being that Square has had this request showing up in various ways and that this post from me is now over 12 months old, this is something that is very much NOT on the radar at all and I am sorry @Arie but the team from square constantly regurgitating the same tired warn out excuses as to why square refuses to implement something that is already in another market is very tiring and insulting, I have tried to give square the benefit of the doubt that things like this will get fixed but alas it is not to be. I even joined the beta program to try and push for more features and offer my online and brick and mortar store as a test platform but unless your using square in the USA forget it you will get the same answers. so much so that I am now in the process of the costly move to another platform that for the exact same cost has 99% of the features we are all asking for in place ready to go already. 

I think honestly it is time for Australian Square users to start talking with our $$$ 

[Chris7231]

So I followed the square instructions & signed up for Shippo.

Now you're telling me that I wasted that money & no matter what, I cannot use any application to add the ‘live shipping rate’ functionality on my website?

Do you guys have any idea how universally stupid it is, for a company like square to sells itself as ’the easiest way to get online & start selling’, to not be capable of including one of the most fundamental component to selling online - getting shipping rates right?!?!