Mixed Shipping Rate in Same Order

zen 1.3.8

currently using 3 shipping modules

Store Pickup(5)
Table Rate (15)
International Shipping Rate (20)

Customers can chose any of the three methods and the entire order is handled per the selection(pick it all up at our store or have us ship it all to you using the table rates). Table rates are depending upon the total value of the order and if over $100 shipping is free. When we ship the products (books) we do so using usps media mail). All this works great.

Now we have some products that we need to handle differently since they are not eligible to ship via media mail. for instance, maps and unbound books can not be shipped via media mail.

Within any given order, there will be a mix of books and products such as maps. For the items that do not qualify for media mail, we would like to be able to calculate a usps shipping rate based upon weight. So within a single order, some products will be qualify based upon the table rate and some based upon usps shipping rates.

I have read through several threads but am not finding any solution that would seem to fit this situation.

Is there a way to do this within Zen?

tia

Rich

Hi Rich, saw your post and thought I'd at least give you my reponse.

I was dealing with a simillar situation on my site as well. Based upon what I just recently learned, what you want to do involves some altering of the php in the USPS shipping module. In other words, it's not something easily done at the Admin screen. I tried to have one of the moderators walk me through it and I just couldn't get my head around it.

Eventually I relented and switched to a flat shipping system and I am happy with it.

Best of luck.

Hi Steve

Thanks for your reply.

We have been able to work quite nicely using the table rate component and shipping our products - mostly books, maps and some unbound printed material, via media mail. A recent visit from a USPS representative has forced us to re-examine our shipping. According to this rep. some of the material we thought was eligible for media mail, is not. Furthermore, the USPS rep. informed us that the USPS was going to start opening a percent of all media mail shipments to determine compliance with their rules and if the material did not qualify it would be returned to the shipper.

Applying a flat rate to these non-eligible products doesn't really work for us - the actual shipping costs vary significantly depending upon the distance the product is being shipped. Adding to the problem is that in almost cases, the non-media mail eligible products are mixed within the same order as eligible products. And of course, our offer of free shipping above a certain price point adds to the mix, as well.

I'm not sure how we will end up resolving this issues but if we come up with a solution I'll let you know ;>

Have a blessed and wonderful day!

Rich