Shipping Set Up - Confused!

[Emma]

I have just spent the last hour (or two) reading through these threads trying to get to grips with a change to my shipping set up. I am now more confused than ever, and have a website with no shipping currently allowed ...hence the urgency. My shipping is based on weight, with three options (UK only). This was not working - and the system was "choosing" one of the three for the customer automatically. I was trying to change this and now have a situation, where I am totally puddled and have no shipping at all! I would like to set up the following: Based on weight, Royal Mail Letter Post, Standard parcel post and courier delivery, with a drop down box of one, two or all three options depending on the weight of their cart. To throw another angle in I would like to offer free deliver to the Oban area, £5.00 delivery to within 15 miles and £7.50to within 30 miles (irrespective of weight). Any help would be much appreciated!

[jont]

Welcome to the forum Emma.

It may be an idea to add a screen grab of your shipping screen to a thread for someone to take a look at. Ensure the shipping zones are expanded.

[Emma]

Think I have cracked it!

Jont,

Thanks for your reply. I have set this up as follows: set up the Uk as a country with 3 shipping zones, and set up Oban as its own country, with three delivery zones. I had to set up a tax zone for Oban too, before it would recognise this as a country.

A second problem I was having was the default shipping option always being the cheapest and often overlooked by customers. This is important for me because we offer a chilled courier service for cheeses and fish, and this is more expensive, so people would just overlook the choice of shipping and go with the cheaper eg: no refridgerated 2-5 days (would you fancy smoked salmon after 5 days in a warm box?!)

I have fudged this in that I have made the special delivery instructions a required field, and changed the message there, inviting customers to confirm they have selected the correct delivery method, this will at least stop them clicking straight through to the next step with the cheapest delivery option.

Any other ideas to improve this method would be appreciated - for example, can I move the Shipping and Handling Section to appear before the invoice address?

My website is: www.kitchengardenoban.co.uk if you would like a look!

Many thanks

[leehack]

If you have items that must go via a particular method, why not include the cost of shipping in the product price and state that it is FREE shipping on that item. Apply a weight that has no charge attached to correspond with the item.

[Emma]

Leehack,

Thanks for your suggestion, I am not sure how I would work this one in. For a side of smoked salmon, we can send this out in the royal mail letter post with an ice pack for about £2.00 if it is on its own, but if the customer were to choose this with some cheese, some wine and some biscuits say, then we would suggest sending the whole thing in a chill box by courier, this price is £10.03 minimum. If I were to put the £10 against the price of the salmon, the salmon would be very expensive and no one would buy it - and if they added this in with a mixture of other items, it would then add up the weight of the additional items and charge even more for delivery...

I am thinking about dropping the Royal Mail option and putting up a message to say to email me if they ONLY want a salmon, so they can bypass the whole process!