Before we commit to a store, I'm interested to see how other store owners process orders each morning.

With our Yahoo! Store, each morning we print the range of packing slips (Yahoo! creates the PDF packing slips) and then export the addresses, as a CSV file, for that same range of orders on to FedEx Ship Manager. At the end of the day, we upload the tracking numbers through XML.

I've heard that through , you have to print packing slips one at a time. Is there a workaround to this? And how about exporting the addresses - do you have to copy and paste each address individually, or can you export a range of orders?

DJ

Well, the first thing I do when I get in the office is log on to and take a look at what new orders have came through.

I usually scan through them to make sure I'm able to fulfill all the items, once thats been verified I then make them display that they have been completed. I print them out and use the print out as a packing slip. I currently only use UPS, and I have another person manually produce a UPS shipping label for that order and thats it, its all done.

One thing that I have not done, or even looked into it is to go back and manually enter in the shipping tracking numbers.

This is something we are interested in knowing too before we sign up.

We currently use an offline order manager program provided through our current ecommerce hosting company, and want to know if offers something like this.

We can download our orders, print them all out in one print job, then move orders to "approved". We can print all postage directly from the program too (with one-click through Endicia and UPS WorldShip programs). Upon completing orders, we then moved them to "completed" and upload all information back to the online database.

Does offer something like this??? It is a VERY useful program.

LeftCoast,

Word. The feature you want to get is an add-on feature to MonsterCommerce called MonsterDataPort. When you sign up for your cart you can get a free month of DataPort, and after that it costs an extra $19.95.

What this allows you to do is download your orders as a .CSV file, at which point you can mail merge them through Microsoft Excel or a similar program and then you can print labels as a large batch.

You can also download your customer list as a .CSV file. And, more importantly, you can download your entire product list and then make changes to the file and process it back into your site.

I hope this helps.

ArcoJedi - O B 1 - Sweet! Could one of the Staff's Excel jocks be able to do a custom job and create this Excel mail merge file that will pull all of the necessary info for packing slips from a range of orders: order number, date, Ship-To address, bill-to address, payment method, and item(s) ordered ?

I'm sure other users will be interested too - so we're willing to split the cost of creating this thing. If it can be done for a reasonable cost, we'll call Steph TO-DAY and sign up for a store!

DJ

I see how this can be used to download a csv for UPS or Endicia (USPS postage).
(side note-- if you ship USPS you should look at endicia. great simple program. blind postage for priority and free delivery confirmation.)

In my opinion, DataPort is one of the best features here on MC. Please take a moment to review the DataPort Information/Order page at http://kb.monstercommerce.com/dataport_v4.asp.

Currently Charles, the DataPort guru, is working on the download to provide practically all the data that pertains to each order and he has emailed me suggesting that this should be completed by this weekend.

I am not familiar with the FedEx system since I use UPS, but I hope my process will give you an idea of what FedEx might require.

Every morning I download the entire file which includes order number, date, Ship-To address, bill-to address, payment method, and item(s) ordered and much more. I then import into UPS Worldship based upon a map that needed to be created to direct the data. This works perfectly except for one minor glitch which omits the leading zeros on a zip code (04046 shows as 4046) which go to an error file to be corrected.

Then, it is just as simple to download the tracking numbers via another map that needs to be created by you. The DataPort system will then allow you to upload this to populate the tracking numbers with the corresponding order and move the orders to the folder you desire. The new version of DataPort will also trigger an email to your customer if you wish.

I certainly hope that this assists you in making the decision to join MC. If I have missed anything please someone let me know, then I can improve the functionality that I am using.

I have not tried this yet.

My site is new and the order are few at the moment so we are currently manually processing them.

I have checked the dataport order output in excel and it is perfect for a simple import into endicia.

StephanC,

I am holding my breath, and eagerly await this new functionality that you discussed. Basically, I need to get MC store as efficient has my non-MC store, and see the Dataport updates as a very necessary step to get closer.