Sections and delivery charges

[mash]

Hi there,

In our catalogue shipping costs are included in the price for most UK destinations. We have to make a surcharge for the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Isles of Scilly.

The catalogue is organised into sections, each section relates to a delivery period (April, May, June, etc.) for our product which is organic plants. When selling to customer in the UK, site works fine as the shipping is included in the price. The problem I am having relates to the surcharge to the other regions, as it is set it will add a surcharge for each pack that is ordered.

For example :
An order of 3 packs in April, 1 pack for May, 2 in June would give me a Postage total of £41.10 for Highlands and Islands (as there are 6 packs order at £6.85 surcharge each).

However, for each section (delivery period) the order is shipping in one go, therefore I want to be able to charge surcharge to the customer once for each section (example above it would work out to be £20.55 extra shipping charges).

Is this possible. Any help would be appreciated, thank you, Mash

[mash]

I have noticed that if you use weight as your calculation basis on the Shipping Tab, it allows a product to be Ship Separately.

In my case I am using a hidden product to give me a discount schedule to encourage people to buy more in each month's delivery window using associated prices.

If I set that hidden product as 'Ship Separately' will that mean the products associated with it will be classed as one product therefore one surcharge or each product will have a surcharged applied to it.

Any ideas? Regards Mash

[mash]

Embarrassingly I have got this wrong myself

Let start again, I am try to allocate delivery charges correctly and to take into account the 3 delivery zones (UK, Highlands & Islands inc. Isle of Man and Isles of Scilly and Northern Ireland).

Example based on Highlands & Islands as that is easier.

If I buy one pack in May it will cost £12 + £3.50 surcharge. If I buy two packs in the same month (£12 each) will be a reduce surcharge of £3.10 and the total cost to the customer is £27.10. For a single month surcharge or shipping charges will be 3.50 for a single pack and 3.10 for 2 pack upwards.

That is relevantly straight forward, however, if the customer orders from a second delivery time at the same time as the first, the same rules will allow to that order. So if they had 1 pack from May and 1 from June it would be two lots of £3.50 as they are single pack cost, however, if they order 2 packs in May and 1 in June it should have a delivery charge 3.10 and 3.50 respectively.

I initial thought I solved it by setting up different Class under each zone, so many combinations not a suitable solutions. Equally thought 'ship separately' was the answer, then there was the hidden product, messy pricing but will take another look. Also the idea having three separate buying areas for each zone.

Any suggests are truly welcome, regards Mash

[mash]

Another thought. Is it possible when a shipping zone is selected for example Highlands & Islands, at the point where the drop down selection list for the different class under the invoice details. You can have a box which you can as in the customer can enter the correct delivery charge?

Still fishing for ideas, I have got it to work over two months using different shipping class relating to quantity but is hard work.

Mash

[cdicken]

This is quite a complicated requirement - but you probably realise that.

The closest you could get to it would be to create one shipping zone called 'UK Mainland', one called 'Highlands and Islands' and so on until you had created all your zones. You may have to go to 'Advanced | Locations' first to create new 'States/Provinces' within 'United Kingdom' called 'Highlands and Islands' etc.

Once you have done this, you would change shipping to charge based on 'Total Quantity'. Then create a new shipping class within 'UK Mainland' where no shipping was charged, and then you can create a class within your 'highlands and islands' zone that would charge £3.50 for 1, £3.10 for 2 etc.

This would charge fine for people ordering within a single month, but it would not handle the situation you describe where they buy 1 from May and 2 from June. THe only way around this would be to
a) Simplify your shipping charges
b) Switch to a calculation basis of 'Simple' and allow it to be 'Shopper Editable' so that customers can enter their own charges.

[Jan]

I don't really understand shipping (I find it a bit scarey) so this is a shot in the dark.

I tried to test it here but couldn't quite get it to work. I got one season to work completely independently of the others but my second season just wouldn't work - alone or with others it's shipping price seemed to be totally random.

You have three hidden products representing shipping periods and want a suplement to be added to plants shipped to certain areas that is reduced based on quantities.

Chris said that if your components are linked a product then it's shipping details will be used, which is the basis of this theory.

Firstly set shipping to work by weight. Then give each season product it's own weight, trying to make them independant, so

spring could be .01, summer could be 1 and so on. Check the ship separately option on the hidden products.

Then define a range of shipping costs so you might have

.01 shipping for £5
.02 shipping for £4.50
.03 shipping for £4
1 shipping for £5
2 shipping for £4.50
3 shipping for £4
100 shipping for £5
200 shipping for £4.50
300 shipping for £4.00

etc.

Then in theory when products are added to the cart the shipping costs would be calculated on pseudo quantity and should be separate.

Like I say I couldn't get this to work but I don't understand shipping by quantity. Maybe someone who does could try this out and see if it works.

Regards,

[mash]

Jan, I did flirt however I did not managed to get it to work. Unsure if 'Shipping Separately was checked on the hidden product which I am using to generate the price discount, does it class all the associated product as on shipment or each associated product as an individual shipment?

Using Total Quantity I had limited success, by setting up new classes for each zone in shipping bands, I was able to generate the correct delivery surcharge. The customer would have had to select the correct class. However there is a multiplication thing going on (number of packs or shipped items times by cost). It would also jump to another class if 'Don't all excess'. I over came this problem by selecting 'Increment highest value in table' except I wanted to set this value to 0.00 which was not possible (values >= 0.01).

I ended up by setting Shipping Calculation Basis to simple and checking 'Shopper Editable' which works and placing a Delivery Surcharge table in Act_Order01.html to explain the cost.

It is not ideal.

I wanted to try and add a form which could help the customer to calculate the shipping charge either to replace this table or as an addition. If any one can suggest how I can do this I would be grateful.

Once I get the test site, I will post the link if you are interested in the results.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Regards,

[Jan]

Unsure if 'Shipping Separately was checked on the hidden product which I am using to generate the price discount, does it class all the associated product as on shipment or each associated product as an individual shipment?

It should be checked. For my two products I had 1 incrementing at 1kg and 1 incrementing at 100kg, the '100' one worked perfectly but the '1' one didn't work at all, it just produced really odd results.

The real products shouldn't have ship separately checked - this causes a shipping charge to be added for each individual product. This might have been why you were getting multiple shipping charges when you set up the quantity thing.

Regards,

[mash]

I feel that I will have to try this again. It has driven me slightly mad. The solution reached is mot totally suitable but will work for the short term.

If you want to see this please click on the link. Currently under test, if you choice the payment by cheque or postal order you can place an order.

Let me know what you thing.

Kind regards

Mash

Test Site