Estimate tax based on zip code - api

Using Google Checkout, I'm able to estimate tax based on the zip code that's assoicated with a user's account when they click "Buy." The user then sees the tax amount when they checkout.
Is it possible to estimate tax based on the user-entered zip code before a user reaches the checkout page? This is similar to the functionality in Google Products currently. I see some data here (http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/articles/Google_Checkout_Articles_Zip_Level_Taxes.html) but am not sure how to implement it within the checkout button I have.
Is there any other tax table or API that allows estimation of taxes based on zip code? Does Paypal offer this functionality?

have you looked at AvaTax module?
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/one-pica-avatax-connector.html

If your building a cart from scratch you can use avalara's api. If your using a specific package such as magento, 3dcart, or so on they already connect to the major solutions. Avalara's solution also bridges the gap between the sales software and the accounting software such as Quickbooks and Sage.
Otherwise if the company your building this for is small enough and has time to update them manually, you can go to the states website or go to a place that compiles free tax rate tables such as taxrates.com
One major warning with any solution, sales tax taxability rules can be complex, this compounds when your scaling an e-commerce business. Even if your a small business in one state, there are multiple layers to the rules. Best to work talk with an accountant to double check when your initially setting this up.

Related

Scheduling Price Changes in Shopify Plus where my ERP can't

I have a retail website built in Shopify Plus that is fed by an ERP. A couple times a month at least, I have sale events where some (not all) items get varying levels of discounts (I'll call this my store-wide sale), but my ERP doesn't have the ability to schedule temporary price changes.
I also have unrelated discounts that happen at the item level outside the store-wide sale cycle, so the solution needs to be able these to the store-wide sale price for that item and choose the lower of the two.
I can manually change all my prices with immediate effect in the ERP to start the sale and then manually do it again to put them back to the way it was, but that's time consuming, and normally needs to happen outside business hours. If I change the price in Shopify, the ERP just over-writes them.
Is this possible? Is there a solution short of implementing a PIM that will allow me to schedule my price changes in this way?
I was thinking of potentially keeping my store-wide discounts in a metafield and/or a tag on each item and using a script to do the math, pick the best price, and change the price at the line level in cart and maybe Javascript to over-write price displayed on the PDP and PLP to show that same price.
I realised a lot of merchants needed this, so I built an app for this. I'm sure it will do exactly as you need.
https://apps.shopify.com/simple-simons-price-scheduler
If you need additional features, just submit a request via the contact form. I'm pretty quick to implement features if I feel they're beneficial.

Integrating Shopify and third-party gift-card system

Background
I am working with a retailer who has a store on Shopify. The store is not
on Shopify Plus.
The retailer has gift cards from a company other than Shopify. Each gift
card has a number on it that uniquely identifies the card. Associated with
the cards is a HTTP API, available to authenticated users, which can be used
to get or change the balance on a card.
Requirement
The retailer wants to allow customers to use these cards when ordering from
his Shopify store.
Ideal UI
From the user-interface point of view, the ideal would probably be something
like the following. We would add an input field to the Shopify payment
form, near the input field that has the placeholder "Gift card or discount
code". This new input field would be for the third-party gift-card number.
Suppose a customer had a gift card and entered its number into this input
field. Some custom software would check whether the gift-card number was
valid and the gift-card had funds. If either check failed, an error message
would appear in the form.
If both checks succeeded, the form would show success (perhaps by putting a
green check mark) next to the input field. Then it would adjust the balance
to be paid by the customer. For example, if the customer was ordering $300
worth of shoes, and tendered a gift card holding $50, then the $300 would be
adjusted to $250.
When the customer pressed the button to place the order, Shopify would debit
$250 from his credit or debit card, and some custom software would debit $50
from his gift card. It's probably acceptable for this custom software to
run after a delay of 5 seconds or so. (For example, it might be triggered
by a webhook.)
Discussion
I've been looking for a way to do the above. The really hard part is to
adjust $300 to $250 (not just in the form, but when Shopify actually charges
the customer). I have considered the following, singly and in combination:
Changing the Liquid templates.
Putting some custom JavaScript in the Shopify pages.
Writing an app that uses the Shopify Storefront API.
(3) seems the most promising, but it's not easy to see how to do in a "surgical"
way so that I only replace one screen.
I don't want to have to reimplement an entire Shopify store using the Storefront API.
Alternative UI
If you can think of an alternative UI that would achieve the same thing,
please feel free to propose it.
Similar question
This question,
including the questioner's two comments, describes a situation
identical to mine.
However, the only answer (if I understand it correctly) is unacceptable to me.
Ruled-out alternative
I proposed a web service to turn these third-party gift cards into Shopify
discount codes. That idea was rejected by the retailer, because he already
uses Shopify discount codes, and Shopify's form only allows a single
discount code.

Shopify - New order using the Shopify API - how to know tax and shipping?

We have built an e-commerce web application (Node backend, Vue frontend). We process the payment using Stripe, but many brands have asked us if the order and inventory control can be done in Shopify. We are trying to figure out the best way integrate a payment module into Shopify so that the brand can manage the fulfilment and inventory through Shopify.
It seems we should use the Order API to create an order and mark it as paid. But how do we know that the product is in stock, and what are the cost for shipping and tax from Shopify when creating the order? I think we can use the Product API to get inventory levels, but where is the shipping and tax endpoints?
If I understand the Order API correctly, we need to tell Shopify what are the shipping costs and tax costs, when a new order is created. Is that right? How could we possibly know those figures? Seems like there should be an endpoint to calculate shipping costs and get a product's tax rates so that we can then pass those figures back into the Order API. Am I missing something?
I thought maybe we are supposed to create an order that has financial_status: pending first to get shipping and tax rates back (does it even give you those?), then update the order to either cancel_reason: customer or cancel_reason: inventory if those rates are too expensive and the order is declined? But surely we need to know what shipping methods are available to the customer in order to tell Shopify which one to use, right? Or does it by default choose the cheapest one when creating an order?
Notes:
We know the customers shipping address
We don't know where the product is warehoused (Shopify does I think)
We don't know the weights or dimensions of the product (Shopify does I think)
This answer is a little bit late, but i hope, i can help others that are struggling with the same issue.
First i would recommend to set up all Shipping Rates and Taxes in Shopify. There are plenty of manuals to achieve this:
https://help.shopify.com/manual/taxes#general-process-to-set-up-taxes
https://help.shopify.com/manual/shipping/rates-and-methods/calculated-rates
After this there are different possibilities to calculate your shipping and tax cost.
Your shipping cost can you get via the active_shipping API, which can be found here:
https://github.com/Shopify/active_shipping
Or the following Shopify Application: https://apps.shopify.com/boxify
However, you may need to know size and storage location for theese solutions.
The taxes can you get via the country in the Admin API, there is a specific key-value pair for this:
https://help.shopify.com/api/reference/country
I hope that's enough information to get closer to solving the issue, for at least someone.

Ecommerce: Conversion suggestions

I'm a technical person with in-depth knowledge on Python and its framework. I've build an ecommerce store using Django-Oscar. I've multiple products in my store.
My store offers a large assortment of products in the Electronics category. A new and upcoming sub-category is surveillance and security systems. However, due to the varied nature of products in this category, the products are distributed across “Home Security” (Under Appliances) and “Security Systems”, etc. (under the Computers & Laptop > Office Equipment). A better understanding of the market segments is required for better positioning these products.
I reviewed Maplin, another e-store that provides same category of products on its store for better placing of my products.
Since I'm not a business analyst or a sales person, I want to get some recommendations/suggestions on how my e-commerce store can structure the products to increase conversion based on your review of the Maplin Storefront and my own product mix in this category. The constraint is that I cannot create a separate level 1 category for surveillance and security systems.
i tried Google on where should a particular product be placed to increase the conversion rate, but to little fortune. Also, I tried finding other SO portals where this type of question is a fit, but couldn't find any. So, if you can let me know the appropriate portal for this kind of question, it will be of great help!!! You can provide your recommendation/suggestions here as well.
Thanks!!! Appreciate your help!!!
register for google webmaster tools
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
-- then verify your website with google
take a look at google merchant center
https://www.google.com/merchants/
this page has links to google product taxonomy docs with categories etc
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/160081
amazon is also worth looking at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200218500
next step would be structured data for the products
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1211158
http://schema.org/Product

Where is the information located in Magento on a sales order for discount information on the API

I just want to start out this post by saying that I am not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV. I have found this site because I have been trying to manage our Magento instance, after pretty much left high and dry by the developers we had building this for us. I will try and explain it the best I can below:
When we apply a shopping cart coupon to the sales order, and the discount is applied to each item, a new line item total is configured by Magento. We then have a connector that takes the information from Magento's API and it is then connected to Open Bravo, which is our ERP accounting software. Open Bravo is grabbing the information as it normally does, however it doesn't see the discount information, so the order total is different in our accounting program then what Magento has. Open Bravo is teling me they need to know where the discounted amount on the sales order in Magento is on the API. It's obviously in a different spot then the standard sales order amount.
I might be able to describe a little better if you hit me with questions. Any help you could provide would be highly appreciated. Maybe we could barter for some office supplies, as that is what we sell.
Thanks!
If you are using Magento API to fetch order information from magento, then below link will be helpful to find actual value.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/api/soap/sales/salesOrder/sales_order.info.html
It seems that your ERP is storing "base_grand_total" value in stead of "grand_total".