Complex shipping and payments

[yd29999]

Hello Zen Gods,
OK, this is what I'm trying to do, without spending days searching all of the forums for bits n pieces of info. Yes, I bought the book, but it's not here yet.

Product a is $30.00 and a weight of .75 lbs.
Product b is $29.00 and a weight of 15.0 lbs
Run a sale on product a= buy 4 get free shipping. plus they can mix n match all products like product a to get free shipping. While showing the sale on the same page on product a.

Product b is too bulky and can not be combined shipped with most other products.

I would prefer to calculate shipping by weight, but without combining all products into one weight.

Such as 2 of product a and 2 of product b. Product a should be combined shipping of $5.95 and b would be combined to $20.00.

To add to the confusion, I do a lot of international shipping,so getting the right shipping charges is critical.

Product a should be able to be combined to show Global Priority until the weight hits the max weight of 4 lbs. Then switches to Global Air Parcel Post.

While product b is not combinable and shows it's own shipping charges.

All this in one cart?

Any ideas on shipping box building program? So customer can see that 6 of a, 2 of d, 4 of e will fit into one box and minimize there shipping costs, while products d,l, and m must be shipped separately?

Please keep it simple, I've already spent a crazy amount of time on this project.
I am using version 1.3.7

[schoolboy]

At first glance this seems like an improbable combination. Shipping is a difficult call (regardless of the e-commerce software you use), and what you are trying to do appears to have a wide range of interactive variables.

Take a good hard look at the Free Shipping module... where it can be invoked if a variable is LESS THAN or MORE THAN something.

You may be able to get part of the way with that, I don't know...

Other idea is to give your entire shipping policy a good hard think, and decide what your customers may feel is a fair charge to get their orders delivered.

It looks like you're trying to incentivise sales by lowering the shipping, coupled with the entire nature of how the shopper combines his order.

You could be chasing your tail on this for many moons !!!


If you are looking at ways to incentivise purchases then consider volume discounts (configured in the pricing module), or by using product attributes that decrement the prices, based on the attribute's conditions.

Basically, to try to base your purchase incentive strategy on very complex shipping configurations may not actually stimulate the customer at all. Most people know that when they buy off a catalogue and get stuff via mail order (which is exactly what a webshop does), they know that they will pay some kind of shipping fee.

People accept this - they weigh up the convenience of buying from home against the inconvenience of having to get in the car, drive to town, find a parking space, walk up and down the highstreet, deal with screaming kids who want ice cream...

... and they base their decision to home-shop on the cost-vs-convenience factor.

Your job is to get this formula right - offer good value at a good overall price. If you convince a home-shopper that you offer this, they will buy from you...

[yd29999]

OK, the pricing module idea just might work on the quantity discounts
I'll have to mess around or look more into separating the larger bulkier from getting combined with small items.

Yes and no by using quantity or shipping incentives. Someone on the east coast will buy a lot more from me if there is a shipping calculator. They get lower shipping charges.

While someone on the west coast may not order because they pay higher shipping coasts, but at least the customers feel the charges are reasonable. Verses the same shipping charges to all at the higher west coast rates

Also, I'm hoping to get more business accounts which should work with the pricing module.

Now International shipping is a whole new game, but the same results.

Plus, it takes me the same amount of time to fill a box with 1 item as it does with 4. So why not fill it with 4? So it's up selling at it's best.

OK, I'll try to mess with this in a few days.

Thanks for your thoughts, you at least helped me with part of it, you would probably need magic for the rest.