Block Shipping for a product or catagory

We have a flower shop which we are putting online. I have was able to get very far with the site devilment without posting (I read many of the posts that solved many issues) but now I ran into a wall.

Our shop sells gifts and fresh flowers. We ship the gifts which I have working but we don't ship the custom fresh florals. The Fresh florals are in a category of their own I would like to block this category from shipping and would like the option that says "walk-in pickup" I saw one post that talked about virtual products but it shows the product as "Free shipping" which we do not offer "Free Shipping"

I have another section that I would like the reverse this section is favors which are drop-shipped from another company so this would not have the option for "Walk-in pickup"

I can do some programming (I do ActionScript and some ASP)

Thank you;
Ray

What shipping modules do you use for everything outside of this category?

What happens when you have a mixed order? Does 1 product in this category mean "store Pickup"?

Can an order for teddy bears be a "store pickup"?

I am currently using the USPS and “in store pickup” modules.

If it's easier to have it so if one product of multiple product order is an “in store pickup” (e.g. teddy bears can be mailed but fresh flowers can't) then all are in store pickup that’s fine. I would be good to have something that says "You have selected items that require in store pickup if you have any question please contact the store directly for more details. (Phone number and email listed)"

What I would think is best is that the teddy bears are allowed for mailing and the fresh flowers are marked as "This item is for in store pickup only if you have any questions please contact the store directly for more details (Phone number and email listed). "

I don't have a problem if a person would like the teddy bear as an “in store pickup” but I just realized that some products are drop-shipped and are not on hand. So this goes to my second part that some items would only have shipping and "in store pickup" would not be allowed. I happen to have Fresh flowers (Which can’t be mailed) as a category and Favors (Which can only be mailed) as another category. So it might be easier to do this by category but I could be wrong

I can't be the only one that has run into this issue. As I dig into this I find the shipping issue very confusing. I also have another question that just came up. The drop-shipping company uses UPS we use USPS. The prices for UPS are more then the USPS is there a way to add a little extra to cover the difference? (If so would I have to remove the USPS module? I like the fact that it gives a shipping estimate. Or can I add a handling charge which would cover the difference and can the handling charge be a percentage?) If it has to be site wide I can deal with it but I am not sure how to handle this new issue. Also this issue is for favors only so can I add handling changes just to that category? Again I am sure I am not the only one with this issue.

Thank you for your help
Ray

What distinguishes the flowers from everything else that could be tested for?

Usually some type of unique component of the products table is good that flowers would have or not have ... or everything else would have or not have such as:
master_categories_id
products_weight
products_model
etc. etc.

This would allow testing the cart for the products to see which group they belong to and then control whether or not the USPS shows ...

Then, there is the issue of products that "must ship" ... that too could be tested for but again, need something to identify those products ...

If there isn't anything for identifying:
1 Store Pickup only
2 USPS only
3 USPS or Store Pickup

Then something has to be added ...

Now what happens on the USPS only products and the Store Pickup only products in the same order? :unsure:

Let me start off by saying thank you for your help!

Everything in the Fresh Flowers catagory (Cat# 77) do not get shipped but "In store pickup"

Everything in Favors (Cat# 7) get shipped but no "In store pickup"

Everything in New Baby (Cat# 103) gets shipped but no "In store pickup"

All other catagories can be "In store pickup" or USPS shipped. Thinking about it I want to keep things simple. I will not split the order if someone wants some items "In Store" and others shipped. They can place two seperate orders or call the shop.

Following this logic (If it is logic) If someone selects a Favor and any other product except Fresh floral then all items are shipped. (part will be dropped shipped via UPS and others will be USPS)

If products are selected from Catagories other then #77 #7 #103 then all products can be "In store pickup" or shipped via USPS (It's all or nothing I will not split the order)

If a user selects Favors and Fresh Floral then this would be the only one that would indicate Fresh Flora is a "In store pickup only" and is not factored into the Favors shipping. (Note all Fresh Floral has a zero shipping weight too)

I still will have the issue of pricing differences between Favors/New Baby which are drop-shipped and shipped UPS and other product which are shipped USPS and cost less to ship.

Thank you!
Raymond

This could all be customized but it would take quite a bit of work to manage each aspect of the shipping on your products/categories for this to work properly ...

Let me think about this for a while ... as I have an idea but not sure if it would work ... :unsure:

Thank you for all you help!

Raymond

I was looking at the virtual downloads. Would this prevent shipping? It does say free shipping which would have to be removed. Would this be a way to go? I would have to modify about 300 products but if it works then I can deal with that.

Maybe the in future versions the Virtual download could be more generic (or expanded) as a way to block shipping.

Thank you;
Raymond

I did a quick test this may work the only problem I see is mixed order. Does the Virtual dowload get add to shipping with a mixed order? and is there a way to indicated in the shopping cart that, the non-shipping item is "In Store Pickup Only and not added to shipping total"?

Would this work?

Ray

Virtual Products skip the checkout_shipping page during checkout when that is all that is in the Order ...

On the Shipping Modules when in a mixed Order you will find that these Virtual Products do not count in the:
Item Count
Weight
Price

on any of shipping calculations ...

Another benefit of using the Product is Virtual YES will be that you can use the flag for Virtual Products where the field in the products table products_virtual = 1 for testing for these products in the cart ... to identify which products are in the shopping cart and marked as Virtual for any other calculation that you want ...

Unless you start selling Downloads, I cannot really see a specific drawback at the moment on using the Product is Virtual YES ...

As to the Text shown on the Order where the Products are all Virtual Products, you can customize text to read in any manner that you like ...

NOTE: Kind of an Off Topic Type of thing, as long as you do not have any Product with a Product Model (products_model) that starts with, in caps, GIFT you should be fine ... the reason being as that is a trigger for Gift Certificates and would cause you problems with Discounts and other such pricing issues as well as create Gift Certificates ...