multiple USPS types of shipping, any advice?

[finlander]

Hey All,

Just wondering if someone would care to point me in the right direction to help me get started. I essentially have just two questions, see below.

I only ship via USPS (domestic and international). I use three domestic USPS shipping types (first class, priority, express) and three international USPS shipping types (Canada first class, worldwide first class, worldwide priority).

My shipping charge is flat-rate, per item ordered, and, within each of the six shipping types, the per-item shipping cost for any item in my store is exactly the same.

However, the buyer pays shipping on only one purchased item per shipment -- all additional items are shipped free along with the one item. For example, any one purchased item via USPS first class is a $3 shipping charge, and if ten items are purchased via USPS first class, as part of the same shipment, then the total shipping charge is still $3.

I guess I have only two questions:

1. Can I set up these six shipping types, each with its flat-rate per-item shipping charge, without using the USPS module in Zen Cart?

2. Can the "all additonal items ship free" shipping discount be incorporated?

I've just started trying to figure out this part of store configuration. Please bear with me! Thank you!

Please see screenshot for a simple chart.

[Ajeh]

If you were to clone Flat Rate into each of these 6 methods and then build Zones for which shows for whatever the shipping address is ... wouldn't that work for you?

[finlander]

thank you, Linda, it sounds excellent but

uhh, cloning, ?
you lost me at cloning..
:)

I can handle hacking a little code. I don't see a way of making multiple Flat Rates in Admin >> Shipping Modules

J.

[finlander]

Linda, I found all the old tutorials/threads on cloning. I get it. It looks as though this is a common shipping requirement for a lot of stores, so that would indicate that the whole cloning way of doing it is still the Zen Cart way, until something slicker is included in a future Zen Cart release?

[Ajeh]

Cloning is needed when you need to customize shipping that doesn't exist for your method ...

There are also a lot of Add Ons that exist for shipping that might work depending on your needs ...

For those that need something more specific, cloning allows you to make your own shipping modules and have them work the way you want them to based on the method and zones that you need to use ...

[karinthia1]

Hi guys,

I was reading through the posts on how to clone the shipping modules, and I finally made my shipping modules to work the way I want. However, I want to have three different modules, e.g. "Domestic", "Canada", and "International", each with their own list of available shipping options. But how can I make for example all my Domestic to show under my Domestic module. Right now each shipping option is showing under individual boxes called Domestic. See picture below.

[Ajeh]

You would have to write a shipping module capable of managing all of the shipping rate choices in the same module ...

Right now, as these are in different modules they show separately ...

[finlander]

that's a tricky one, karinthia. I began working on something similar to your shipping model because I wanted to ship domestic and international (only USPS) and I wanted to offer a few different shipping services to each. I began to build various flat-rate modules, as you have (so nicely) done, and having the shipping quotes in different boxes probably would have bugged me, if I had completed the work, but I stopped midway through and switched to the USPS module. It is perfect for my needs.

Okay, that said, you may be able to accomplish what Linda said, but you would not be able to do it in the flat-rate modules, because as you know you have to assign a dollar amount to each one, and then your stuck/stopped with being able to bunch a few shipping services into one module. The only way I can see of getting you even close to have better grouping of the shipping quotes, would be the Zone method, but I think it would be a lot of work for results that aren't particularly impressive when compared with the ease of installing and configuring the USPS module.

Anyway, that's my best guess w/o doing a lot of work just to see what's possible w/ Zone. I don't think the Table method would work for you, and all the other methods are going to have separate shipping quote boxes on checkout for all the different places and services, and that's what you are trying to avoid....