Different shipping rates for retail vs wholesale customers?

Greetings my fellow Zen Cart users!

I am in a bit of a bind here. I am taking over the IT needs for a friend's website who utilizes Zen Cart...I should also add that this is the first time I have ever used Zen Cart and have only been using it for about two weeks now, and at the moment I only have access to the Zen Cart Admin tool.

I have created a catalog & products by using Catalog -> Categories/Products etc. I have everything set up the way (I believe it should be) and the items do post to her website and customers are able to purchase these items.

The problem I am running into is in the checkout process. The way she has her products set up is
"Retail customers" (0) pay normal UPS shipping rates (The UPS tool is installed) while "Wholesale" (1) customers pay a different rate. For this category we want both Retail & Wholesale (2) to pay standard UPS rates. Currently, both customers are receiving the "Wholesale" version where they have to select a radio button that states "Custom Per Order" in order to proceed.

I have tried for hours to get this figured out, but I cannot for the life of me get this situated, and her previous IT person is not returning any forms of communication.

Can anyone here please help?!

Are you able to determine or know what plugin is providing this extra functionality?

More than likely the shipping modules have been modified to support this customer group functionality. With usps, this customization maybe by use of an observer which is code that is not directly typed into the usps module but is inserted during execution by the notifier system.

Fyi, reason I asked about the software is that perhaps the thread related to that program would be helpful in applying the desired change(s).

Further, what coding support tools have you armed yourself with? Comparison? Plain text editing? ftp? Local IDE to make code format checking easier? Etc...

Thank you for the quick reply. The plugin is the "UPS addon shipping module". I utilize Komodo Edit and Local IDE to make sure the code is correct, but the problem I have is that I do not have access to the server to insert any coding, as I only have access to the Admin area at this time.

Hope that helps!

Seanobr88:

Thank you for the quick reply. The plugin is the "UPS addon shipping module". I utilize Komodo Edit and Local IDE to make sure the code is correct, but the problem I have is that I do not have access to the server to insert any coding, as I only have access to the Admin area at this time.

Hope that helps!

So okay, sorry I referenced the wrong shipping module, sorry about that. Similar principles still apply.

So the question about the additional plugin was not necessarily about the shipping module but this "wholesale" feature. Basic ZC does not offer a "wholesale" option. But there is/are plugins that add that functionality to the code... Further based on the "capability" of that plugin, it may/may not be possible to modify settings in the admin to accomplish the desired goal. This more than likely will require editing the code (ftp related software needed). If the "owner" won't give access to the server, maybe they can provide a copy of the files or copy the files to a location that they will offer/trust to allow ediiting.

deleted: duplicate due to internet connectivity

Thanks, I do have access to the FTP and use FileZilla. So, if I'm understanding correctly, I can't do it from the admin page, but instead to edit the code via FTP and upload it that way?

Have you found somewhere in the admin panel a place to designate which group is associatedwith which shipping?

Also in the OP, the use of (2), is that to mean a new group? Thatpart I didn't understand.

Is there a shipping option that implies that it is provided specifically to offer the custom For order option? Are you wanting to turn that off?

Seanobr88:

Thanks, I do have access to the FTP and use FileZilla. So, if I'm understanding correctly, I can't do it from the admin page, but instead to edit the code via FTP and upload it that way?

Depends and goes back to what plugin is installed (and the capability incorporated). If I may suggest, if you download a clean copy of ZC 1.5.4 and compare it with your newly "acquired" setup, you can see what files are modified, added, or deleted and likely can figure out more about the setup and how this feature was applied. Regarding the UPS module, that is not stock code with ZC, so could "keep it small" and download the same version from the plugins section, compare it to your version and then if still necessary could post from where the uPSmodule was obtained, the changes made and perhaps specific changes could be suggested to resolve this oneproblem...

Sorry, I should have made that more clear. In the Catalog -> Categories/Products, where I created the listing of products, it is set up where certain items are only available for certain customers; so "Wholesale" is 0, "Retail" is 1, and for both it is 2. So certain items are only available to certain customers.

The way the shipping is set up, if the customer is "Retail" they get charged according to the UPS shipping calculator; if they are "wholesale" they get charged a flat rate. What I am looking to do, just for this catalog, is to allow the wholesale customers to get charged using the UPS Shipping calculator.

From what I have been told, in the past if a product is available to both customers, the normal shipping rules would apply. For this catalog we want to alleviate that and have everyone get charged the same for shipping.

I guess a follow up question would be is there anyway I can either modify the code or upload a new file that has shipping instructions for this one catalog only without having to rewrite the entire thing?

Futher update

Similiar to the previous post, I only need to apply this shipping option to a single category. In the UPS addon, there is a module that I CAN use for this catalog that is already set to go. The only question I am left with, is how do I apply it to that single catalog.

I want to thank everyone, especially mc12345678, for your help and bearing with me through this process!

If you would like to clone a shipping module, so that that "version" operates differently than another, yes that is possible. There's a FAQ on it, but comes down to first being sure to copy the module file and the languages file for that shipping module, then within it modifying/establishing the logic to make it active only for the desired condition(s), and then "installing" through the admin panel...

Further, considering that it may seem like you have full access to the admin panel (superuser), there is no "master" controller for the wholesale feature that allows/offers full control of what is/is not active for each group, then file copy/modification would be the way to go. That said, it is highly suggested that you copy the existing site to somewhere you can access the copy (locally using WAMP, LAMP, etc..) Or a sub-domain for the site, that way you can design/test to your hearts content and not mess up your newly designated site to maintain...