In the US, we commonly refer to shipments weighing over 150lbs. as freight shipping. Less than Truck Load (LTL) is the term used to describe shipping freight that is heavier than 150lbs. while not requiring a dedicated full tractor trailor truck delivery. UPS and FedEx both have freight services and have APIs for getting real time quotes into online ecommerce systems...
ltl.upsfreight.com/
shipfreight.van.fedex.com/index.aspx
There are also many other companies (freight carriers)that deliver freight. (YRC, ABF, Estes, R&L Carriers, etc.) And then there are freight brokers that are essentially logistics companies that work with many freight carriers to find their customers the best pricing and delivery by comparing the offerings from many freight companies. Most of the time, the freight brokers will have pricing much lower that UPS or FedEx. Some of the larger freight brokers (see below) have APIs for their services just like UPS and FedEx.
b2b.freightquote.com/Ecommerce.aspx
freightcenter.com/business/API.aspx
www.myfreight.com/Rate-Quote-API
Ideally, I would love to have a HikaShop plugin developed that would work with one of the freight broker's APIs. I would certainly be willing to contribute financially (within reason) to the development of a working HikaShop plugin for one of these freight broker APIs.
Please let me know if you know of any developers that can help. I know that there are probably many HikaShop owners in the US that would benefit from such a plugin.
Thank you!
Mohamed Thelji wrote: Hello,
Can you tell me exactly what do you mean by freight services ?