Yes, another flat rate question

[mrcastle]

Have two or three items that I want to ship on a flat rate basis. They are used songbooks and I can give them their own manufacturers' name.

Manuf="misc1" flat rate = $1.95
Manuf-"misc2" flat rate = $2.95


If some one purchases any of the above items as a single item, flat rate applies . If mixed, normal usps rates apply.

I am a non-programmer. If this is something that is do-able but you need to charge for your time, just let me know.

[Ajeh]

What happens when both song books are in the cart?

[mrcastle]

Then I've made twice as much haha! It's a good question.. I guess if some one were to order a few songbooks I would have it default back to the USPS rates. The weird thing about zen is if you select flat rate shipping, it shows flat rate shipping for every product in your catalog.... I only want to use flat rate on my songbooks... thin one's are $1.95 to ship and the fatter ones are $2.97.

Thanks for looking into this

[Ajeh]

You could use 0 weight on these products and then add a calculation to the USPS shipping module for:
global $cart;
$charge_products_thin = $_SESSION['cart']->in_cart_check('manufacturers_id','XX') * 1.95;
$charge_products_thick = $_SESSION['cart']->in_cart_check('manufacturers_id','YY') * 2.95;

Then use that to add these new charges on to the shipping cost ...

I would put in a test for when those are the only products in the cart so that you don't offer all the USPS shipping methods ...

[mrcastle]

Neat... I'll give it a try. Is there a specific area I need to place the code ie the body ?

[mrcastle]

sorry... I noticed you told me to put it in global $chart but I'm not exactly sure where that is in my usps.php file...

[Ajeh]

This would be done in the function quote ...

Just before the quotes are built ...

You will see the code:

        // EOF: UPS USPS

// add new code here

        $methods = array();
        $size = sizeof($uspsQuote);
        for ($i=0; $i<$size; $i++) {

You want it before the FOR statement so it is not repeated over and over ...

[mrcastle]

do i now need to enable my flat rate ? If so, what settings do I need to set ?

Also, will all of the other options be hidden so the flat rate is all they see ?

thanks, mitch

[Ajeh]

I don't know what all you are doing to customize the USPS shipping module to know if you need the Flat Rate flat shipping module or if you are managing everything in the USPS shipping module ...

You have 3 scenarios ...

1 Cart holds normal Products - use USPS

2 Cart holds normal Products and thin and/or thick Products - use USPS and add on extra charges to the cost in USPS shipping module

3 Cart only holds Thin and/or Thick Products - how are these charges managed? Does your USPS work right? Or is it showing all of the shipping methods? Does showing all of the shipping methods work for you? Or, do you only want 1 shipping method to show?

[mrcastle]

Good questions. Ok, I am happy with everything in my zen-cart which right now is using only USPS. Because of the tare setting for my other products, even if I put the weight at just above zero, the shipping rate is still to high for my used songbooks. Why ? because my used songbooks only sell for $2.95 (thin one) and $4.95 (thick one). No one will buy them if shipping is too high.
What I am hoping for is way to set a flat rate for each of those two sizes and Not have zen-cart show the USPS options, just the flat rate that applies to that songbook.

If some one wants to buy another songbook, or bundle it with something else, then I want the flat rate to disappear and go back to USPS defaults.

Is what I'm asking for going to be a programming nightmare ?