Canada Post - Shipping Multiple Items

I'll get right to the point. For our store as with many I'm sure, a customer may purchase a single item, or several items. My question is how do you set this up for use with the Canada Post Shipping Module. Curretnly when I set up a product and the "Item ships in its original box" is checked, then I get the correct shipping price. However, if I add another item, it does not group these items into one box, but instead assumes that i will be sending two items. I have tried unchecking the box, but then the pricing does not work at all (I either get a much higher value for a single shipment or it says the weight is to heavy to ship by CP). I have all the handling fees currently set to zero in both Zen and on the CP website. Can anyone suggest a way around this...ie, how do I have the cart group items.

I guess another question would be what is happening when I uncheck that box?

Sorry for the long post and thank you very much for any suggestions you may be able to offer.

Is there maybe no way to get around this currently? Should I just be charging a flat fee by zone?

i'm not sure if its even possible to have the cart figure this out. I am going to play with some of the settings on the Canada post site and see what happens. If anyone can offer any suggestions at all it would be a great help.

Hi Fombi,

I was having the very same issue today.

My solution (almost complete - just waiting on some information from Canada Post) was in making sure that the product dimensions coming from the product information in Zen-Cart mathematically have to fit within the boxes you have configured on your CPC admin.

Example,

Item A measures 10cm x 10cm x 5cm
Item B also measures 10cm x 10cm x 5cm

To make the CPC module recognize this could be sent in one box, you have to have a box on the CPC admin configured to be a little larger than 10 cm x 10cm x 10cm.

Just picture the two items being stacked within one box.

The bottom line, the values you are passing to the CPC module have to fit within the boxes you have programmed.

Like I said, I am waiting for a little more information from Canada Post about how it knows which boxes to use, but I assume it chooses the smallest package that is still larger than the items you are shipping.

Hope this helps, I will post more as I figure it out.

It is very important to make sure that 'Item ships in its original box? (ie: no extra packaging charges)' is disabled otherwise it appears CPC won't try to use any of your pre-programmed boxes on the CPC admin.

Thanks so much for your help TQ-Man. I was starting to think I might have to find another way of shipping.

Have you noticed that when you disable the "Item Ships in its original box" that the price goes up for some reason. Any idea why this might be happening? Does CP add fees for some reason. I have all the handling fee's set to 0, so I'm not sure what is causing this.

Again thanks so much for the feedback on this!!! Huge help!

I spent about an hour on the phone with them today figuring this out...and its a real crummy method they use.

Your store feeds the dimensions and weight of the products you are shipping to the CPC servers, Canada Post then goes to your list of boxes and finds the most appropriate one(s) to use for those particular items.

The box it chooses may be the most appropriate one you have programmed, but if there is wasted space inside the box Canada Post will end up charging you for "dimensional space"...roughly translated, they are saying that you are taking up space you don't need, and therefore you're going to pay for it.

So make sure your boxes are as small as your products will permit to keep unused space to an absolute minimum.

You can verify that your cart is producing the correct quotes by going to http://www.canadapost.ca/personal/tools/rc/res/bin/rc_res_us-e.asp and entering the details manually.

Hope this helps a little more

I think something may have gone wrong recently with our Canada Post shipping Module. We are using only the "product shipping wieght" set to 5lbs, leaving the dimensional settings at 0. The weight is in lbs and "item ships in original box" is not checked. On the canada post website our options are set up with a box of 10kg weight limit, a weight of 8kg and LxWxH of 30x30x30. For some reaons we are getting a message back on our site that says "parcel to heavy to be shipped with CPC". Does anyone know what might be causing this? If i check the "tem ships in its original box" option then the module works, however it adds multiple items up (ex. it adds the cost of 2 boxes instead of 1). So the modual seems to be working, but somehow not reading the product weight properly. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Fombi,

Not sure if you sorted out your problem, but I was having a similar issue a while ago. My posting is here:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=244389&postcount=2

TGS

tqualizer_man:

It is very important to make sure that 'Item ships in its original box? (ie: no extra packaging charges)' is disabled otherwise it appears CPC won't try to use any of your pre-programmed boxes on the CPC admin.

Where do I go to DISABLE "Item ships in its original box"?

Thanks

Hi giggliepig,

To disable "ships in own box" you would go into a specific product via the admin area, scroll down to near the bottom, and uncheck the box next to " Item ships in its original box? (ie: no extra packaging charges)" in the shipping information area.

Hope this helps. :)