Unique Shipping Problem - any ideas?

I have a unique challenge for an application of ZenCart that I’d like some general input on. I know you’re a creative bunch and I’m hoping some of you might see an obvious way to use the existing system in a way that I’m missing … here’s the deal :

The catalog in question is an online counterpart to a brick-and-mortar antiques store, and it’s the real thing – not a junk shop! There are thousands of items, and 99% of them will be one-of-a-kind – so tracking stock levels and reordering is not an issue. Basically, the item is for sale in the store as well as online, and once it’s sold it’s out of the showroom and catalog, probably never to be replaced. Of course ZenCart works fine for this and most items can be purchased online with S&H processed like any other item – but with some exceptions…

An antique chandelier is a good example… There it is hanging in the window of the store – and it’s for sale in the online catalog as well. How much will it cost to ship such a thing? That’s something that’s almost impossible to predict until you go to actually do it. Figuring out how to pack such a large, fragile item would be a project itself, and will require an unknown amount of boxing, padding, packing material, etc. Furthermore the odd sizes and weights of some of the resulting packages may require special shipping that can be impossible to estimate until you call a shipping service and say “get out here and look at this awkward thing!”

So some items need to be flagged as “Call for Shipping”, the same way it’s possible to flag an item as “Call for Price”. Since the transaction cannot be completed with an unknown shipping charge, these items don’t need to be added to the cart – again, the same way “Call for Price” prevents this. So it’s simple enough to just change “Call for Price” to “Call for Shipping” and use it the same way – but I still want the price to show.

Since none of the items come in different sizes, colors, or with optional add-on features, I’ve never had need to mess with ZC’s Options and Attributes settings. However some items should have an additional shipping-insurance charge on them – and I’m not really sure if that could be calculated in advance or not. (Perhaps it’s a percentage of the item’s value? I need to ask the owners about that…)

So – can any of you folks see a creative way to use the Options / Attributes settings to add shipping insurance (if known), or a way to flag an item as “Call for Shipping” short of mutating the “Call for Price” button into this?

And thanks in advance to all of you who give it consideration…

Why not use Call for Price which blocks the purchase and change the image/text for this to something more suitable?

Call for Price products can have Prices etc. displayed and showing ...

Yeah - that's exactly what I had in mind. All I have to do is change the "Call for Price" button to one that says "Call for Shipping", and it serves exactly the same purpose. (I hadn't experimented to see if the price would still show, but I'm glad to hear it will. It could have always been included in the description though...)

Now - if it's possible to know the shipping insurance in advance - or if it can be calculated as a percentage of the price - could this be "added on the fly" if the item was purchased online? We're trying to stay away from figuring it into the item's price, since we want to display the same price in the catalog as the store's "walk-in" price for the item would be. On the "Call for Shipping" items this would not be an issue, but can insurance charges be added to the items that can be added to the cart?

You could add in the Attributes like:

Option Name: Shipping

Option Value: Insurance

And set as a radiobutton or dropdown and have it marked as the default so it is already selected for the customer ...

Thank you, Linda - that sounds like an excellent suggestion. I'll certainly give it a try! I'm in the middle of upgrading a 1.2.6 ZC store to the new 1.3.1, and I'm taking the opportunity to make some changes.