Hi

I am a new Zenner and am working on a Canadian site for a client that exports products there (I do not live in Canada). We are setting the site up to sell from a Canadian warehouse to customers in all provinces. My basic challenge is I'm trying to consolidate all the variables into a solution that works in the shipping modules, so for all you experiences folks out there, I'll give you my variables and gladly absorb all your welcomed advice please! :)

Firstly, I am bound to Purolator for my shipping - this is required by the warehouse that stores and ships the product for us. As far as items being shipped, I have one larger boxed item that is about 18lb cubic volume (it's lighter than that but Purolators size rating charts put it at that for the shipping price) and about 20 or 30 other smaller products that range from .08lb (very light) to 2lb (a bit heavy) with a broad range if weights in between. The smaller products accumulated weight will outweigh accumulated size for those if customer buys a bunch of them, so size isn't a factor for those ones.

Now I anticipate that for the most part customers will buy the larger boxed item and maybe a few of the smaller products to go with it. However some will definitely only buy either or, so it will vary.

To complicate things, the warehouse has a flat $3 fee for first 15 items and .25 after that (I anticipate that most orders will fall within 15 items though) and there are also 3 different box sizes (sml, med. lrg) of which I have yet to receive dimensions for - that range from $0.50 to $1.10.

To make it even more complicated, each province can potentially have a different shipping rate due to how Purolator structures pricing to different cities within a province.

Phew. What head ache! And all for a beginner. Sheesh. Anyway, I'm a novice so I would be glad for advice and input for a solution that can be cost effective but not too complicated if possible.

I think I want to also avoid a bunch of different shipping methods as well for the customer (Purolator as a lot of them) - cheapest rate is fine so it's a single simple solution for them at checkout.

So there is my challenge, your best advice is welcome! Thanks.