Weight based shipping in 1 section only?

[Greenmind]

I am currently in the process reading through the help files on 'shipping' in order to understand it fully, but as it's tough going I though I'd just enquire as to whether or not what I need to do is possible.

I currently have a fixed shipping charge no matter what the order is, but free over X amount. It's not perfect but it's minor faults are offset by it's simplicity, so it works ok. But I'm introducing a new section to my store and the aforementioned simple system is not going to work with it. I want to keep the simple system for the other sections but do a weight or volumetric weight system for the new section. Is this possible?

I suspect, although I'm not sure really, that I'll have to set it all up as weight based but make all the products in the existing section very 'light' so it triggers a fixed minimum charge (my current fixed shipping charge - so kind of going round the houses to achieve the same result). Of course then I can make the products in the new section 'heavier' as required.

Hope that all makes sense.

Any input at all would be warmly appreciated.

[leehack]

Your thoughts on what to setup are correct and your best option.

[Greenmind]

I thought as much.

Although I'm looking at using the 'supplement' feature instead now - as I don't fully understand the weight based shipping.

[Greenmind]

That's not going to work either. I offer free-shipping over X amount but I can't do that with the products in the new section - sending these (bulky) items for free would be too costly. As I see it the only way is to add the shipping cost to the product price. They'd still get 'free shipping' but they would still be paying through the product price.

Either I don't know what I'm doing (most likely) or there's a little problem with the shipping in Actinic. Imagine you sell DVD's and as it doesn't cost much at all to send them you offer free shipping on orders over £20. Then one day you decide to expand and sell the DVD players as well. But your site is set up for free shipping over £20 and that means you have to send every DVD player - which of course aren't at all cheap to send - for free, or not offer free shipping at all, both of which are going to hurt you. Or keep the free shipping and add the shipping price to the product, which of course makes you look uncompetitive.

The problem is, you can switch 'free shipping over X' on and off for zone/classes, but not for categories.

Any input?

[Greenmind]

Found an interesting thread here:


http://community.actinic.com/archive...p/t-34128.html

[leehack]

Instead of DVD and DVD player examples, why don't you detail exactly what you want to do instead. By weight is most likely to be what you should be doing, just needs a bit of lateral thought on how it should be setup. First of all, forget that it is weight based, that will just confuse you.

[Greenmind]

This is a post that never got posted last night. I stuck with the DVD examples because I didn't want to muddy the situation.



'Tiered weights. This would work with products that are all priced similarly:

Each DVD weighs 1kg for example
Each player weighs 100kg

2x DVD's come to over £20, so..

0-1kg - shipping £2.95
2-99kg - free - (you must have bought 2 DVD's to trigger this)
99kg-1000kg - £15.95 (shipping charged for the player, but they would have to buy 99 DVD's before there was any charge for them - unlikely)

That's all fine and dandy, BUT if your DVD's range in price, say from £1.99 to £19.99 it won't work.


I could match the weights to the prices. I could make a £1.99 DVD weigh 1.99kg, a £2.99 DVD weight 2.99kg, and so on. But not do this for the players. Instead I'd make the players 'very heavy'.

The player could weigh 1000kg and with a tiered system:

0-20kg - £2.95
21-999kg - free
1000-1000000kg - £15.95

This would work if my products had one price, but they have lot's of prices because of the drop down choices. I can't put in a weight for every attribute choice, only once for the product. It's impossible.'


I'm adding the shipping to the product price, with 'free shipping' across the board. It's the only way as far as I can see.

[leehack]

Sounds like the dvd players should be shipped via category based shipping.

[Greenmind]

That wouldn't work either.

Shipping category-------Cost
----DVD's---------------2.95--------Free over £20
----Players-------------15.95-------Free over £20

The 'free over' part is not independantly editable for categories.Whatever you have for one, you have to have for the other.

It is independantly editable for classes, but the customer chooses that. I'd have to have a box that would basically be asking the customer 'Are there any DVD players in your order?'

[leehack]

I think you are wrong, category based shipping only uses category based classes AFAIK. DVDs would not be set as category based shipping.

[Greenmind]

Not sure I'm with you Lee. I can make 1 class (UK standard charge), and 2 categories within it ('DVD's/default', and 'DVD players'). I can alter the shipping price for each, but there is no way of changing the 'free over' amount.

[leehack]

You can't have one class using both methods, you have a class for each.

[Greenmind]

Yes, but as I understand it, a class is something chosen by the buyer during checkout (this is an assumption on my part as I haven't ever used zones/classes, but it looks that way). For example: first class, second class, overnight etc.

To use it in the way you suggest I'd have to have classes called:

I have bought DVD's only
I have bought a DVD player only
I have bought DVD's and a DVD player


Which would be open to abuse, and just daft.

[leehack]

Without loading up a test site, I cannot give a definitive answer, however I would have thought that when you buy products in any given category, then only the class options that apply to that product are offered. However, even if that is not the case and all classes show, if you have them setup correctly then the category based option would be first in the list (cheapest shows first) and the others would never be selected due to the crazy cost attached. If you had the following options, what would you choose?

Standard Courier Service (£5.00)
First Class Post (£27.00)
Second Class Post (9.00)

No need for daft names as you put it, common sense and the easiest to select would suffice. You also have the option to make the 'non-offered' options disappear from the list by setting high weights on the players and not allowing an excess on those classes. Those classes would then not be offered at all.

[Duncan Rounding]

Not meaning to cloud the issue posted but is there good reason why the 'simple' method won't work with the new products you want to add? Won't this just make it harder for buyers to know how much shipping costs will be upfront?

If you solve this what about if someone buys something from each of the different sections at the same time?

Am I perhaps misunderstanding?

All questions and no ansers - sorry.