Repeating Base Weights for Main Shipping Boxes

My company ships meat products, where the individual product boxes ship inside in a cold storage box that is six pounds. Our Zen Cart is set up to add six pounds to the base weight for any shipment. But once the orders get larger, we need to set it up so the weight of additional cold storage boxes is incorporated.

All of our smaller boxes that go into the cold storage box are the same size, I believe four fit into one cold storage box. So where in the set-up can I make it so the six pounds gets added for each additional cold storage box? Is there perhaps a range table I can create, where 1-4 units adds six pounds, 5-8 units adds twelve pounds, etc.?

What do you have set for

admin > config > Shipping/Packaging >Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship

Thanks for the quick response. It's set at the default 5,000. So if I set that max at the weight of four smaller boxes plus the shipping box, that should resolve it for the most part.

Only one wrinkle in there, all of our smaller boxes weigh three pounds, but there's one (filet mignon) that is two pounds. So if I make the max weight per box 18 pounds (4x3 + 6 for the cold storage shipping box), it would create an issue if someone tried to order five or six of the two-pound filet mignon boxes, which it would still see as under the "one package" weight limit. Any ideas on that, apart from selling filet mignon in three-pound boxes instead of two?

it would create an issue if someone tried to order five or six of the two-pound filet mignon boxes, which it would still see as under the "one package" weight limit.
Try to mediate this by charging something that makes most about right on the plus side and very few at maybe a slight cost - it should average out in the scheme of things

Thanks, I just ended up adding a half-pound to the two-pound product weight profile. So with our cap of 18 pounds per package, only four meat boxes can fit in a single package regardless of weight variances. I have it all just about set up the way we need it now, there's just one thing that's not quite working. When the order exceeds 18 pounds, it does split the order into multiple packages. But it's only adding the six pound base cold storage package weight for the first package, and not for the additionals (small/medium and large packages tares are set to 0:6).

For example, when I tried an order for five filet mignon boxes at 2.5 pounds each, it makes the order 18.5 pounds and split it into two packages, but it shows the total weight as 2 pkgs x 9.25 pounds total. So it's only incorporating one six pound base package weight there, when it really should end up being "2 pkgs x 12.25 total".

I'm not seeing anything in the shipping settings that can address this, do I perhaps need a different tare formula?

Been working on other parts of our site but now circling back to this topic. Any ideas on how to add that six-pound base cold storage package weight for each additional package? I can still only get it to add the six pounds to the first package.

Post your shipping/packaging settings

Country of Origin United States
Postal Code 97055
Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship 18
Package Tare Small to Medium - added percentage:weight 0:6
Larger packages - added packaging percentage:weight 0:6
Shipping Delay 1
Display Number of Boxes and Weight Status 3
Order Free Shipping 0 Weight Status 0
Shipping Estimator Display Settings for Shopping Cart 0
Display Order Comments on Admin Invoice 1
Display Order Comments on Admin Packing Slip 1

Post a link to your install

Place spaces in it to prevent it being indexed by google here

Such as

http :// www .zen-cart.com/

What shipping module(s) are you using?

http :// www .timberlinemeat.com/

On the shipping modules, we only have ups, upsxml, and zones active.

When are you using the 3 shipping modules that you have listed ... this seems like an odd combination ... :lookaroun

I did that because we only offer UPS Ground (plus Next Day and 2-day) to customers in Oregon and Washington, where customers outside OR and WA should not see ground as an option as we ship perishable product. I didn't see a way to do that within the existing ups module, so I kept the ups module tied to the "outside OR/WA" zone and activated the upsxml module and tied it to the OR/WA zone.

Maybe there's a cleaner way to do the zone set-up but it seems to work, well apart from the package weight issue...

I can see how setting up Zones for Oregon and Washington and another one for everyone else can work better with UPS and UPSXML ...

Now on your 6lbs per 4 items, is this on every product that you have or does this change per product?

You have your Maximum set to 18lbs, how does that fit in to your shipping?

So far it's on every product, as we only ship meat products and we portion everything so it's right around three pounds per box. Four of those boxes fit into our shipping package after adding the cold storage packaging (which is six pounds). So I set the maximum package weight at 18 pounds (six pounds for the cold storage plus four three-pound boxes). The tare weight setting for the packages is 0:6.

When doing some testing, if I make an order that has five boxes it does break the shipment into two packages, but it does not add the six pounds for the additional package. So where five boxes ordered should generate two packages totalling 27 pounds, it only comes up as 21 pounds. The first box tare weight always gets factored in, I just can't get the additional ones to generate.

Are your 4 items per box ALWAYS the same weight or do they vary?

Right now, you appear to be adding your 6lbs to the boxes BEFORE the boxes are computed ...

What needs to be determined is if the 6lbs should be added AFTER the item count is figured out fro 4, 8, 12, etc.

Not to be difficult, but the more details you provide, the easier it is to manage this for your shipping needs ...

Right now they're basically all three pounds per box, and one is 2.5 pounds per box but it still generates a second package if someone were to order more than four of them. Going forward we'd definitely prefer to be able to have variances, so if I can set it up like this:

• Each meat product unit ships in a single standard meat box
• Each refrigerated package contains a max of four meat boxes
• Each package adds 6 pounds to the order

Down the road we're hoping to sell other food products and supplies that don't require the refrigerated package or the standard meat box, so if I can categorize the meat products as having the above profile and a then set up a more minimal box weight addition for all other products that would be great.

Thanks for all the help, I recently started here and inherited the site and set-up, so I'm trying to figure out a lot on the fly. Saw you got an account on our site, nice!

If you were to set your Tare Rates to 0:0 ...

Then, if you were to edit the file:
/includes/classes/shipping.php

and add the code in RED:

      $za_large_array = preg_split("/[:,]/" , SHIPPING_BOX_PADDING);
      $zc_large_percent= $za_large_array[0];
      $zc_large_weight= $za_large_array[1];

[B]// bof: add 6lbs per 4 items
global $cart;
$item_count = $_SESSION['cart']->count_contents();
$item_count = floor(($item_count/4));
$zc_tare_weight = $item_count * 6;
$zc_large_weight = $item_count * 6;
// eof: add 6lbs per 4 items
[/B]
      // SHIPPING_BOX_WEIGHT = tare
      // SHIPPING_BOX_PADDING = Large Box % increase
      // SHIPPING_MAX_WEIGHT = Largest package

would this produce the correct weights for you?

Test orders for:
3lb products only up to quantity 50
2.5lb products only up to quantity 50
Mixed 3lb and 2.5lb products up to quantity 50

does everything seem to be calculating correctly?

Which calculates your charges better ... leaving the Maximum Weight at 18 or setting it to 50?

Do you need to display to the customer the number of boxes?

That code partially works, but it only adds the six pounds for each package that has EXACTLY 4 boxes in it. So if I order one 2.5 pound box it only shows the order as being 2.5 pounds, and if I order five boxes it shows the total order weight as 18.5 (12.5 plus 6 where it should be 12.5 plus 12).

Displaying number of boxes would be preferred, but once we get into adding other products and supplies of varying sizes/weights we'd probably limit the box listing to the shipping notification e-mail that goes out to the customer.