Weird Packaging for one unique heavy product

I have a product that has to be shipped in a unique packaging that is quite heavy. It's a poster so it has to be shipped in a tube. BUT, if someone added 10 posters to their order, I don't want the item to be weighted such that it adds the weight of the tube multiple times. How do I handle this? Any ideas of the best way to approach this?

What Shipping Modules are you currently using?

What distinguishes the Posters from all other Products that ship normally by weight?

We are using UPS for everything that's domestic and USPS for international orders. The only thing that distinguishes them is the product itself. The fact that it is a poster means it has to go inside the tube.

This is the URL...I am sure this may help. :)

http://www.causekeepers.biz/stop-it-now-store/

And what affect does the:
Tip Card Bundle - Save 35%

have on this with its Posters?

It sounds like this Product is actually 2 Posters for each one in the cart ...

So now you have 2 Products with 1 Poster each and 1 Product with 2 Posters each ... that now have to be broken down to 10 per Tube ... is this correct? :unsure:

Do you have other Posters than the 3 Products or are you planning on more Posters than these, in the future?

You understand the product line perfectly! :D I don't think we'll have additional products we need to accomodate for although I am curious why you ask. ;)

I buy 8 Posters and 2 of the Products with the 2 Posters ... is that 8 Posters? 10 Posters or 12 Posters?

You said 10 Posters fit in a tube ...

I didn't say 10 fit in a tube. Honestly, I don't know how many would fit in a tube....:O! But, in your above scenario, there would only be one tube involved. :) Does that answer your question? :)

You have Products by weight and Posters ... somewhere there is a limit of how many Posters fit in a tube and a charge for that tube ...

You need something to "count" the Posters and add the Tube charge to the order ...

Somewhere you need to know that you have UPS and USPS for all Products except the Posters ... and somewhere you need to have a charge for that Tube ...

I don't ship Tubes so I have no idea what kind of charge you want to add when XX number of Posters are in the order and if there needs to be a charged based on a Tube for every XX number of Posters ...

0 weight will give you the lowest price with UPS or USPS to a destination ... but if you want to count how many Posters and charge a particular amount if 1 or more Posters are in the order or if you need to charge a particular amount for every 10 or 20 Posters in the order, you need to explain more what to do with the Poster count ... and then, if the Poster count does become a factor where only 10, 11, 20 etc. fit in a tube then there needs to be a formula for that ... and this is for after identifying how many Posters are in the cart ...

So you need to break this down a little better and help distinguish how do you know a Poster is in the order ... do they all belong to a particular category? manufacturer? anything that marks them as "Poster" that can be tested for? :unsure:

Is there a way to set up a product so that it is in two zones....one zone for the shipping and one zone for disabling the flat rate?

You could edit the Flat Rate flat shipping module and if the master_categories_id were 10, you could change:

      // disable only when entire cart is free shipping
      if (zen_get_shipping_enabled($this->code)) {
        $this->enabled = ((MODULE_SHIPPING_FLAT_STATUS == 'True') ? true : false);
      }

to read:

      // disable only when entire cart is free shipping
      if (zen_get_shipping_enabled($this->code)) {
        $this->enabled = ((MODULE_SHIPPING_FLAT_STATUS == 'True') ? true : false);
      }

global $cart;
if (!IS_ADMIN_FLAG && $_SESSION['cart']->in_cart_check('master_categories_id','10') > 0) {
  $this->enabled = false;
}

This has worked! Thanks, Linda! I am just curious....can you modify this for a specific product id? If so where would I find that code?

That is the neat trick with the function in_cart_check ... :cool:

I designed it so that you can pass any products field to it and it will grab the information of the quantity ...

For a Master Category ID of 10, using the master_categories_id:

$_SESSION['cart']->in_cart_check('master_categories_id','10')

For a Products ID of 12 using the products_id:

$_SESSION['cart']->in_cart_check('products_id','12')

What you do with the results is up to you ...