Good point, Linda. I take this compromise for granted since my head's been buried in my own site, where most of my products require selecting options, e.g. "number of windows," when adding to cart. These, of course, cannot be added from anywhere other than the product info page. Not a big deal when base price for every product is a couple thousand dollars, but for small-ticket items, I can see where one would need the ability to add multiple products simultaneously from index/listing.
To clarify my initial note, the shipping adjustment I need differs from the product-specific drop-shipping rate scenario. I have two product categories -- each in its own product type -- one of which ships flat rate or in-store pickup, but never UPS. The other category/type always ships UPS (never in-store or flat rate).
Seems hard to imagine until you realize every UPS-only product weighs less than 50 lbs, while every non-UPS product weighs over 1,000 lbs.
Given its weight, every non-UPS product disables UPS during checkout -- that is, UPS does not appear as an available shipping method. (Good.)
My problem is with those light-weight UPS-only products. Though the UPS module employs a maximum weight, neither the flat rate module nor the in-store pickup module employs a minimum weight. So, when purchasing what should be an UPS-only product, the buyer may select UPS (okay), flat rate (bad) or in-store pickup (even worse).
I suppose (thinking out loud here) I could frankenstein some minimum-weight requirements for in-store pickup and flat rate shipping modules, mimicking the maximum-weight requirement of the UPS module. I guess the deal falls apart if a buyer tries to simultaneously purchase a UPS-only product and a non-UPS product -- but this doesn't happen in the real world.*
One solution I haven't yet explored: set a minimum weight for the entire order which enables flat rate and in-store pickup when true, else flat rate and in-store pickup are disabled. This way, even if non-UPS and UPS-only products are in the same cart, in-store pickup and flat rate are enabled while UPS is disabled ... because the sum of the product weights is greater than the flat rate/in-store pickup minimum, and the weight of one of the products is greater than the UPS maximum.
Conceivable? Or is everyone thoroughly confused now? :blush:
* To understand why it doesn't happen in the real world, you'd have to know something about the products and the people who buy them -- superfluous info in the context of this thread. Those who simply must see for themselves can visit shedkitz.com -- but time is money, so the wise will just take my word for it. :wink2:
