Virtuemart and the USPS
Well I was having a bit of a fight with Joomla, Virtuemart, and the USPS.
I have new webhosting customer who needed a shopping cart and shipping via USPS. Well knowing how well Virtuemart has worked for me in the past I went out to make it work. Well it took a few hours but here is what it takes to use Virtuemarts shipping with USPS.
Virtuemart comes with a module for USPS but with little documentation. I hope this eases your pain.
- Register for a web account at: https://secure.shippingapis.com/registration/
This is not the same as a account at www.usps.com. The above link will email you your username and password. These will not work right now with Virtuemart.
- Call to activate your account at: 1-800-344-7779
By default the USPS does not let you connect to their production servers, and the shipping module with Virtuemart does not work with the test service! If you call the above number and explain, they will activate your account.
- Fix for your locale
if you get errors when running Virtuemart under debug node about ‘Invalid country name’. This is because the shipping module thinks your not in the united states. To fix this you must update Joomla not Virtuemart.
Site — Global Configuration — Locale
Be sure to change your locale to en_US from the default en_GB. I had to log out and log back in to have the changes take effect but it should work now.
If you have any trouble email me at brockp@mlds-networks.com
