Zone Shipping Cost based on Individual item weight, not total order weight

[Ajeh]

NOTE: remember you also have the Handling Fee that can be worked in there as well per Zone (cloned) copy of the module to help with the rates ...

[klog]

Hi all,
I think this thread is similar if not identical to what I am working towards accomplishing. For sure I experienced the same issue with multiple items in the cart, throwing the shipping cost to zero. The zone rate module works exactly the way I wish as long as there is only ONE item in the cart.
My reason for working in this direction is that I drop ship many of my products and ship to many countries. The final shipping charge varies GREATLY sometimes from country to country. To me there is no ryhme nor reason as why, but I can't change it, that's for sure. For example it may cost $30 to ship to the UK, and $50 to ship to Germany (just a hypothetical)
Here's how I set it up: I used numeric "codes" in the item weight field for each product I have, eg. 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, etc. Defining the zone rates for example - Zone-1:
1.01:2.95,1.02:14.95,2.01:10.00,2.02:12.00,3.01:5.95, & so on.

Zone-2:
1.01:5.90,1.02:33.45,2.01:13.60,2.02:23.20,3.01:11.90, & so on.

At the moment I have 4 zones set up, but anticipate more.

I understand now why the module is making the cost ZERO if there is more than one item, because the module is taking the SUM of the weights (my "ship codes"), adding them and coming up with a value that I have not defined (with a cost). The thing is, there are simply too many (infinite perhaps) combinations (permutations?) of "codes" for me to anticipate, and thereby assign a total cost for the itemS being shipped to the particular zone the customer wants shipped to.
SO, after my long winded explanation, HOW can I make the zone rates module keep the charge assigned for each "code" and add them together, instead of adding the "codes" (weights) together and then looking for a zone definition that doesn't exist.
IS the perunitweight module the answer? I've looked at it several times, but can't get my head around how I can make that module accomplish want I want.
Any ideas?
Cheers & all the best,
Kevin
PS: http://kevinlogan.com/gallery2/main.php if anyone wants to see my cart in action.

[Ajeh]

The Per Unit perweightunit shipping module is designed to assign a shipping cost to each Product ...

Let's say you ship to the US and Canada and the UK ...

If you have a Product with the products_weight set to 2 for $2.00 to the US, then you would set the Unit Rate on the Per Unit shipping module to 1.00 ...
1 x 2 = $2.00

Now if you clone the Per Unit perweightunit shipping module for Canada so that this Product ships for $2.50, you would set the Unit Rate on the cloned Per Unit shipping module to 1.25 ...
1.25 x 2 = $2.50

Then, if you clone the Per Unit perweightunit shipping module for the UK so that the Product ships for $4.00, you would set the Unit Rate on the cloned Per Unit shipping to 2.00 ...
2.00 x 2 = $4.00

You are basically building the rates proportionally for each cloned copy of the Per Unit perweightunit shipping module ...

NOTE: be sure in the Configuration ... Shipping/Packaging ... that you are setting the Maximum Weight to 5000 and both the Tare Rates to 0:0 ...

[klog]

Hi Linda,
Thanks for the info.
Question: are you saying that I should clone the perunitweight module for every country I ship to?

Cheers,
Kevin

[klog]

Hi again,
Having slept on this idea of cloning the perweightunit pages, and actually working a bit on it, I've come to realize that as far as I can tell, this approach won't work for me, unless I make like a million clones (and zones), as I realized that there is NO consistency to the multiplier factor, eg 1.5X, 2X, 3X etc. the intital price I put in the weight fields. For example, it may cost $5 to ship product1 to the USA and $10 to Ireland (2X factor), but cost $10 to ship product2 to the USA and $40 to Ireland (4X factor).
I really wish I could get the zone rates approach to work as I attempted (which it does for single cart-items, not multiple cart items). If anyone has any ideas, word love to hear them. For example, is there any way to fake-out the php script, treating the weight fields (my "ship codes") simply as "identifiers" and not to be added?
Any way, thanks again for your help.
Cheers & all the best,
Kevin

[Ajeh]

Could you define a bit more specifically what you mean by "identifiers" and how you envision using them?

[klog]

Hi Linda, be happy to explain (better hopefully) what I mean.



Using the "weight" field I have put in "codes" that correspond to all of my possible products. My logic was/is numerals left of the decimal point are major categories of products and numerals right of the decimal are specific products within that category. In hindsight I should have used more significant digits right of the decimal point, and if I can get my shipping working the way I wish I will do that; for example instead of +3.01 I will input +3.00001, representing product #1 in category 3. The more-digit version seems to be the largest number of digits right of the decimal point the field will accept.
Using this "code" (e.g. +3.01) I put that into the "zone rates" zone Shipping Tables with different shipping charges for each zone as I wish:
ZONE 1: 1.01:2.95,1.02:14.95,2.01:10.00,2.02:12.00,3.01:5.95,3.02:,,,
ZONE 2: 1.01:4.00,1.02:20.00,2.01:16.00,2.02:18.00,3.01:12.50,3.02:,,,
Therefore, I guess my goal is to get the zones shipping module to not do any math function with my "codes", but add all the shipping charges for the corresponding products/zones that are in the cart when there is more than one product in the cart. My system worked perfectly until about 2 weeks ago. I received my first multi-product (photographs) order, and it came through with zero shipping charges, so I basically broke even on the order. Since then I've been trying to figure a way to have all my shipping variations (which are numerous because of the sizes I ship to various countries) be totaled up.
I drop-ship alot of my items, so I am already dealing with a marked-up (inflated) shipping charge, so I myself don't markup/roundup or "guesstimate" my shipping charges to make my life easy, I just simply want to automatically pass along my vendor's shipping charges. Make sense?
Cheers & all the best,
Kevin