Using Two Drop Shippers Who Use Different Shipping Rate Methods

[Earnest-Enterprises]

I am setting up Zen 1.3.8a.

I plan to use two drop shippers as my product suppliers who will both drop ship to my customers (both for free, no less). However, they each use different methods of determining shipping cost.

Drop shipper #1, located in Southern California, bases my shipping costs (thus my customer's shipping cost) solely on the value of the order, not weight. If customer X makes a $150.00 purchase in my store they are charged x percent depending on the zone it's shipped to. The farther away from the shipper the higher the percentage (i.e. zone 2= 13%, zone 3= 15%, zone 4 = 17%, etc.). Example: they are located in a 9xx zipcode, zone 2 for them. A shipment going to zone 8 from them is a percentage. So it's figured: zipcode + shipping zone to then % of total $$ order = shipping cost.

Drop shipper #2 is located in Texas and bases shipping fees on UPS's conventional weight/zone shipping. If customer X makes a purchase that comes from the Texas drop shipper then my (thus the customer's) shipping cost will be based on the total weight of the order and zone, not total price/cost of the order.

In both these cases UPS is used as the shipper exclusively and there are no taxes involved as I live in a state with no sales tax.

I am currently configuring the "Zipcodezone" mod for drop shipper #1 which works slick but it won't work for drop shipper #2 as they are located in a different originating zone. It appears I can't combine both in this one mod. The zones used in the zipcodezone mod are (currently) based on the location of drop shipper #1. I may be over/under charging my customer for shipping from the Texas supplier using Southern California as the originating shipping zone (2).

Also note I was originally basing my shipping on price/cost, not weight, as drop shipper #1 charges me but I have since acquired this second drop shipper so I have to re-think things.

My questions:

1) Is it possible to set up Zen using two different methods of determining shipping costs from each of these drop shippers? Somehow it seems that the shipping cost would have to be tied directly to each product when adding it to my product list (in other words, which supplier is it coming from, Calif. or Texas?)

2) What if customer X purchases two products during the same checkout session: one from the Texas supplier and one from the California supplier (meaning two different ways of determining shipping for this one order have to be calculated)?

Am I opening up a can of worms here in trying to do this and should I just stay with one drop shipper or is this relatively easy to configure?

I also don't quite understand the 3 default 'zones' built into Zen. I fully understand how UPS uses 'zones' to ship to depending on the origin (the ship 'from' location) of the package being shipped. Is there a relationship between UPS's zones and the 3 zones in Zen? Could an additional 'zone' be added above the 3 that would cover one of the drop shippers or are these designed more for other countries other than the US?

I'm kind of stuck in trying to rationalize this though and what I'm asking may not be possible. Here's hoping one of you Zen gurus can help. I hope I've made some sense here in trying to explain what I need to do.

Thank you in advance....

Rod

[vvhorus]

Hi!

I'm also very interested to know the answer to this. Our vendor has three drop ship locations, and the items will ship according to their drop ship zone (for example: the California location will ship to customers located in a specific list of states, etc.). Also, they use UPS only.

In addition, our company provides free shipping to all 50 states if a certain order amount is reached, but this amount varies from state to state (example: Alabama $180, Arizona $295, etc...).

Any pointers?

Thanks!!

[tinstew]

I had the same concern and what I did was purchase the advance shipper module from ceon and it pretty much solved this problem. A fantastic mod, absolutely no issues and well worth the money spent.

[Earnest-Enterprises]

Thanks, Tinstew....I've checked it out and it may be just what I need. Sounds like it would save hours of work.