Significant Design Flaw in 1TeamSoftware Plugin

  • Unless you only use flat rate boxes or never use flat rate boxes, this is not the plugin for you. We wanted to love this plugin but have been sorely disappointed.

    This plugin was developed without an understanding of modern ecommerce shipping and the design flaws likely apply to all of 1TeamSoftware’s shipping plugins.

    There is very little documentation to guide set up which would be fine if the plugin was well designed but it’s not. After much back and forth, we got everything properly set up but we started getting complaints from customers that they were getting ridiculous shipping prices at checkout.

    This wasn’t happening on every order so it took a bit to understand the issue. At times the plugin was selecting a flat rate box when a traditional parcel would provide better pricing and vice versa, selecting a traditional parcel when a flat rate box would provide better pricing. On many orders these discrepancies went unnoticed but in certain scenarios the difference is huge.

    I’m lucky to have those customers that complained and I was able to accommodate manually but I know that for every customer that took the time to complain there were others who walked away to purchase elsewhere.

    When we raised this issue with 1TeamSoftware, they confirmed that it is not a bug, just poorly designed and gave us the option to sponsor redesigning their program for them. After recovering from such a ridiculous suggestion we provided evidence of how a competitor plugin properly handles flat rate boxes in parallel (providing the flat rate box option in addition to a regular parcel) which is the natural solution when the goal is to provide the customer with the best shipping options.

    We also reached out to Shippo in an attempt to better understand the issue and have learned that they (Shippo) do not support live rates. 1TeamSoftware’s method for returning Shippo “live” rates appears to be an unconventional use of Shippo’s services, so that raised a concern for us as well.

    Throughout the correspondence with 1TeamSoftware they repeatedly said they were confident there was a work around to solve the issue. After much back and forth, it turns out their work around is that we should not offer our customers flat rate boxes.

    In today’s market, providing shoppers with the best shipping rates is essential to staying competitive. In modern e-commerce, the smallest box is not always the least expensive shipping option but 1TeamSoftware is committed to riding this strategy off the cliff.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author oneteamsoftware

    (@oneteamsoftware)

    Thanks for your feedback.

    As we understand that you wanted us to implement a feature, which would require a fair amount of effort and design consideration, which can’t be done ad-hock.
    We have told you that we have logged a task, but because of its complexity and previously defined roadmap, it won’t become a priority until we will finish what has been already planned.
    We have offered you an alternative way of getting is sooner by hiring us for a consulting projects, which you have refused.

    You have wrote that:

    After recovering from such a ridiculous suggestion we provided evidence of how a competitor plugin properly handles flat rate boxes in parallel (providing the flat rate box option in addition to a regular parcel) which is the natural solution when the goal is to provide the customer with the best shipping options.

    You have showed us a service which based on your description offers what you need.

    In response to that:
    1. If someone offers some kind of service or a feature it does not make other solution poorly designed.
    2. What you have showed is not a feature of the plugin, but a service configuration. In our case service does not offer such feature and we will have to come up with a solution to achieve such behavior.

    You have wrote that:

    After much back and forth, it turns out their work around is that we should not offer our customers flat rate boxes.

    Based on the understanding of your problem, flat rate boxes are offering you higher shipping rates than regular boxes, so it is unclear why do you find our suggestion of using regular box types as unacceptable.

    You have wrote:

    In today’s market, providing shoppers with the best shipping rates is essential to staying competitive. In modern e-commerce, the smallest box is not always the least expensive shipping option but 1TeamSoftware is committed to riding this strategy off the cliff.

    It might be that weight and box sizes is not the only factor, but your statement is fairly offensive and unfortunately does not provide any constructive suggestions.

    With all the said we are sorry for the inconvenience.

    We are committed to develop the best shipping solution on the market and in addition to already lengthy list of unique features we are going to implement a lot more, including the one you’ve requested.

    But it takes a bit of time…

    Thread Starter sunseye

    (@sunseye)

    I’m not trying to be a jerk but I think warning others in our scenario of this pitfall is fair. There is clearly a failure to understand the complexity here. Removing the flat rate boxes does not resolve this for us because there are scenarios where the flat rate boxes are necessary to offer reasonable shipping prices. We need to be able to offer both traditional parcels and flat rate boxes in parallel.

    Plugin Author oneteamsoftware

    (@oneteamsoftware)

    I’m not trying to be a jerk but I think warning others in our scenario of this pitfall is fair.
    I understand that you are frustrated because you were not able to get the feature you need right away.

    Your feedback seems to suggest that our solution is badly designed just because it is lacking a feature which seems to be very important in your use case, but our solution has a huge list of fairly unique features which let you achieve flexibility impossible with any others solutions.

    We need to be able to offer both traditional parcels and flat rate boxes in parallel.
    We have a task to implement it, thanks for clarification.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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