Optimal package weight question

[Artisan]

A site I'm working on has UK shipping set up as follows:

Up to 0.50kg £2.60
Up to 1.0kg £3.60
Up to 1.25kg £4.95
Up to 1.5kg £5.50
Up to 8kg £5.95

8kg is the maximum that a single package can be for the shipping service, so I've set the optimal package weight to 8kg, which means that an over-weight order would comprise an 8kg package and one with the balance in it.

However, this isn't the case when shipping is being calculated. Working with an example product with a weight of 1.2kg, 6 products (7.2kg) is £5.95, but adding another product, taking the weight to 8.4kg, doubles the shipping to £11.90 instead of £5.95 + £2.60 = £8.55.

I've tried changing the 8kg to 16kg in the weight/cost settings, and also tried both "Don't allow excess" and "Take the highest value in the field", but nothing makes any difference.

I've attached a screenshot of my shipping settings if it helps.

Malcolm

[Bruce]

Malcolm,

This feature is working as designed. This is covered in the Help topics within Actinic....

Optimal Weight:
The maximum weight/volume of a single package you would usually send.

If the weight/volume of an order exceeds this value, then the order will be split into several equal weight 'packages' online, and shipping will be worked out on each package separately. For example if you set the optimal weight to 1kg and the total order weight is 2.4kg then the order will be considered as 3, 0.8kg packages for which shipping charges are calculated and then added to form the total shipping cost.

Kind regards,

[Artisan]

Thanks for that, Bruce, I didn't realise the packages would be split equally. Actinic's Help just says that...

If the total weight of the order exceeds this weight, then Actinic online will automatically split the order into one or more packages and then calculate shipping on each individual package.

... so I assumed it would put the balance into the second package.

I'm not the only one who makes that assumption, there are other posts on the subject where someone has said that the packages will be unequal.

Many thanks
Malcolm