Automatic Free Shipping for certain items/categories?

I have seen many questions on similar subjects but cant find where to start on this. A client of mine wants free shipping on certain items, specifically free shipping on all uniforms (whichi is a master category) and breeches (also a master category)

I have no idea where to start but from what ive read I cant understand how it would work, would modifying the code make the whole cart free shipping? I dont even want the free shipping option to show up, just let them choose the shipping for all other items if possible.

Please someone point me in the right direction.

btw I am running 1.3.8

Josh

How are you currently doing shipping?

You have choices, depending on what shipping methods you are using ...

Marking Products as, Always Free Shipping:

Always Free Shipping: Yes, Always Free Shipping

will make the Product have Free Shipping for everyone ...

NOTE: be sure to install the Free Shipping freeshipper shipping module ...

0 Weight, will give Free Shipping if you are using Weight oriented shipping, when you have 0 Weight means Free Shipping setup in the Configuration ... Shipping/Packaging ...

Order Free Shipping 0 Weight Status
If there is no weight to the order, does the order have Free Shipping?
0= no
1= yes

Note: When using Free Shipping, Enable the Free Shipping Module this will only show when shipping is free.

Thanks for the reply, we are currently using ups for orders in the united states, and usps for international orders, then we are using free shipping for orders over $200, but my clients have requested that all uniforms and breeches be changed for the time being, dont know how long until they change their mind, so if there is something simpler than changing the products individually it would be great.

Link to the site is http://police-equipment-worldwide.com

Josh

This would have to be custom coded if you do not address the individual products ...

NOTE: you have mixed Products and Categories inside Categories and this can cause issues on Pricing, Searching etc.

I dont believe I have any mixed categories and products, if I do please let me know where, if you are refering to the fact that items show up when you click a category with subcategories that is an add-on that changes the filter and shows all items in all subcategories instead of offering the sub-categories only.

Is there no add-on for what I am looking to do out there? Ive looked and cant even find something similar, I know a decent amount of php, but I get confused by alot of the way zen cart does things, and would be even worse looking at the shipping modules.

Josh

You would need to write something to identify how many products are in the cart from that category and reduce the weight by that amount before the shipping quotes are made ...

There is nothing built into Zen Cart for this, other than to mark the products as Always Free Shipping if you mean for those to be Free Shipping regardless of the amount of the order ...

You could run an update on the products table for the always free shipping based on the master categories id, if that is the case ...

That sounds like the perfect idea. Im sure its out there and will search but if you know it off the top of your head, what tables would i need to look at, im sure there will need to be some manipulation to compare a couple tables together to get the master categorie id for the product and to change the always free shipping flag.

The master_categories_id is stored in the products table ...

Which "perfect idea" do you want to use?

Sorry, the idea of doing a mass update by master_categories_id to update to always free shipping.

UPDATE products SET product_is_always_free_shipping = 1 WHERE master_categories_id = XXX;

using your Master Categories ID for XXX ...

NOTE: backup your database before doing this ...