Sean's blog

Laos shipping quotations for e-commerce (osCommerce, Zen Cart etc)

I met a couple of friends in Vientiane recently (25th Jan 2011) as they were touring Laos. I had half a day free at the end of the visit, so I executed a ‘brute force search’ of Vientiane to find the cost of shipping parcels overseas. Vientiane is a lovely, charming, welcoming city. You should go there soon before someone ‘develops’ it. It’s the sort of place where you can turn up as a stranger and walk around asking people stuff and they’re mostly genuinely helpful – or at least cheerful about not being able to help!

Laos Post Office HQ (Entreprise Postes des Lao) in Vientiane (EMS / philately shop is here!)

I found the head office of Entreprise des Postes Lao (EPL) quickly enough (no web presence at all) and after walking in and out of doors (this was brute force remember: I speak no Lao and had no clue) and asking everyone I met, I was directed to a door at the back and a very helpful woman recognised “list” in my question and gave me some printed sheets of shipping rates. On the sheets were prices for EMS, international letter and ‘imprimer intl’ which I’m guessing is franked mail. Lots of things are also in French in Laos, which is difficult for a monoglot Briton like me, but I have to be grateful for the legacy the French have left on the quality of bread, cake and all sorts of other food in Laos.

I added the EMS rates to spider.my’s shipping quotations API, as I thought it would be the more likely one to be used for e-commerce. If you’re interested in setting up an osCommerce– or Zen Cart-based online shop in Laos, you can install either the osCommerce shipping module or the Zen Cart shipping module and your shop will include accurate* quotes for international shipping in order totals.

The Laos Post International EMS shipping rates are fairly straightforward. Most likely destinations for e-commerce are covered, though as you can see on the Shipping Quote World Map, EPL’s zones don’t provide complete coverage of every possible destination.

*The obvious problem lies with keeping the Laos shipping rates up to date. I had to fly to Vientiane and walk into the EPL office, and meet someone helpful who just gave me what I wanted when possibly the only word we had in common was “list”. What would be lots better would be if someone from EPL could contact me so that I could get an electronic copy of their rates from time to time. If anybody can help me arrange that, I’d be very grateful.