I have no idea about Shipping. Help Pls.

I'm wondering if anyone can point me at a FAQ or something but I have no idea how to go about setting up my shipping options.

I have installed the modules I think will be useful, but my problem is trying to work out what module to use and how to set it up.

I sell products that weigh just under 1 kilogram and products that are very very light. I can sell multiples of every product I sell and send them anywhere in the world.

For my heavier items I was going to charge on a weight basis, but that is no good for my light items as the weight difference between 1 and 3 items is negligible. Can I use more than a single shipping method?

I know that's not groundbreaking stuff, I guess I'm just a little overwhelmed and don't really know where to start.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You may want to setup an account with Fedex, USPS, UPS etc so that you can use the automated modules. They automatically calculate based on weight and what speed your customer wants or how you want to ship.

If it is not already in the admin section you can download the module from the download section. Be sure that you match versions.

It might be an easy way out for you since you said you ship abroad.

Hi, thanks for taking the time to reply, much appreciated. I'm in Australia so I wont use the options you mentioned. I have installed the Aus. Post module and I'm going to spend some time looking at that to see if it will help me out.

Thanks again.

I have products with a wide variety of weights, too, and I still found by weight the most all-around useful method. I weighed my products and divided the oz wt (which in some cases was 1/4 oz!) by 16 to get the pound weight in decimal value. Zen does a wonderful job adding up even lightweight stuff and figuring postage using the USPS module -- hope the Aus Post module works just as well.

FWIW, I think the shipping module is one of the least user-friendly parts of Zen, so don't feel like you're alone. Having to set tax rates to activate shipping modules is just plain weird. I nearly tore my hair out getting the USPS module working and tied up all the message slots begging for help. The good part is, once I finally got it working, it chugged along working just great -- now I'm back because I'm trying to add in-store pickup as an option and it isn't working. But I'm hopeful that once the gurus here tell me what I'm doing wrong, it will work just as well as the USPS module has.

Thanks for the reply Sylvia, I appreciate you taking the time. Yep, I'm expecting to spend some time working it all out. I think 'by weight' will be the way I'll go.

Thanks again.