New UK Royal Mail Postal Charges Module

[jayson.gurney]

Hi folks
I am not sure if you are all aware of this but as of 21 Aug 2006, the royal mail will be introducting their new postal charges.

A summary of this is as follows:

If your item:
fits inside 240mm x 165mm
is no thicker than 5mm
max weight 100g
It will be classified as a LETTER

If your item:
fits inside 353mm x 250mm
is no thicker than 25mm
max weight 750g
It will be classified as a LARGE LETTER

If your item:
is more than 353mm long or
more than 250mm wide or
more than 25mm thick or
weights more than 750g
It will be classified as a PACKET

The new postal rates for these three seperate classifications are as follows:

LETTER
weight First Class Second Class
0-100g £0.32 £0.23

LARGE LETTER
weight First Class Second Class
0-100g £0.44 £0.37
101-250g £0.65 £0.55
251-500g £0.90 £0.75
501-750g £1.31 £1.09

PARCEL
weight First Class Second Class
0-100g £1.00 £0.84
101-250g £1.27 £1.09
251-500g £1.70 £1.39
501-750g £2.20 £1.77
751-1000g £2.70 £2.12
1001-1250g £4.74 £N/A - max weight for 2nd class is now 1000g
Each additional 250g or part thereof + £0.85

I am not very good at programming but would have thought that the above would be quite easy for an experience programmer to code. Is anyone willing to help me out with trying to create a new shipping module that will cover this?

What other options do UK based store owners want from a shipping module? Currently I am using The GEOMULTIZONE module.
Regards
Guzzer

[Reesy]

Actually I think the change is much more difficult than you think, as it basically involves putting measurements in for every product, or some kind of classification as one of those 3 sizes but its not impossible.

[kuroi]

Reesy, it will be every bit as difficult as you suggest to deal with the situation when a customer buys a single product. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine the problems of calculating the postage due when they buy several. We would need to take account not just of the physical dimensions of each object, but also what they will be packed in and how. It would be possible but not straightforward for like sized items such as DVDs, but extraordinarily difficult for say items of pottery or adult toys.

[jayson.gurney]

Okay - Point taken. But how do you guys/girls plan to deal with calculating postal charges in the UK with this soon to be new postal rate system?
regards
Jayson

[Reesy]

Hi Jason,
For me this isnt going to be an issue, as the postage rates are still going to be the same.... free
(we offer free postage you see)

Hi Kuroi,
I know you can speak Japanese, you might like to download the Japanese zen cart and look at the Yamato or Sagawa postage modules, as these both use dimensions for postage calculations to see how you can get around it.

[kuroi]

you might like to download the Japanese zen cart and look at the Yamato or Sagawa postage modules, as these both use dimensions for postage calculations

Good idea Reesy. Do you know offhand whether these are core to the Japanese version or add-ons?