Specify shipping by item

Is there no way (or add-in module) to specify precise shipping options, only by item (not weight, or count, or dollar value)?

For example, I have a client who has a number of different scenarios for his store:

Item A - these are free, but customers pay, say, $4.95 for USPS for quantity 1-5, and then $9.90 for USPS for quantity 6-10, and so on, up to quantity 20.

But sometimes the customers want them in a hurry, so they offer UPS Next Day Air Saver - either for another flat rate, or we can talk to the UPS feed for that. But we ONLY want to offer the one UPS Next Day Air (not regular UPS)

And I need to be able to offer both options.

For other items in the store, shipping is the normal "by weight" with UPS rates - I do not want to offer free shipping on these (they won't go via USPS regardless) And I DO want to be able to offer all the various UPS methods.

In an ideal world, I'd be able to specify the shipping options for each item in my store, but I can't seem to find any way to do that, short of writing a whole new module (which unfortunately I do not have time to do for this customer at this time)

Anybody run into anything like this?

Not really an answer to your question, more of an opinion on the shipping options available for Zen Cart when dealing with clients that have what I would call unusual shipping costs.

I think the shipping modules supplied by default in ZC are going to work fine for at least 90% of the people using it. However, as I've found out with a current client that has bizarre shipping rates it is less than ideal.

Of course the best option in this type of scenario is to have the client simplify their shipping rates.

I seem to have found my way around everything other than offering two US per item rates, just like you I need a standard rate and an express rate for those wanting their items shipped faster.

What you need is Per Unit perweightunit Shipping Module ...

But the problem is this uses the products_weight field for the shipping charge ... that field is needed to be the right weight for UPS or USPS to run correctly ...

You could add another field to the products table and re-write the Per Unit perweightunit Shipping module to manage this ...

It would require quite a bit of customization but it can be done ...

Have you got your coder's hat on? :smartalec:

There's more to it than just getting the client to simplify their shipping rates.

They have some items that are essentially weightless, until you get to a certain quantity of them (think pieces of paper) - shipping quantity one is the exact same as shipping quantity ten. But they COST twenty some dollars a piece. Likewise, they have free items, but the shipping charge is set by quantity ordered.

They have some items that MUST go USPS, and can't go UPS, and some items require the opposite. For some items, we can let the customers make a choice between UPS and USPS, but for some we can't.

And they have some items that require a flat rate.

The thing is, I didn't think this would be that odd an issue, because I have probably seven ecommerce clients who have odd requirements like this (only one of whom is trying to use Zen Cart for it) and at this point, I'm about to tell him we can't do what he wants short of writing a custom site from scratch, and that won't be cost effective.

It just seems odd to me that this is such an unusual thing, but I guess it must be.

You said it yourself ...

Seven sites ... seven different combos ...

650000 downloads of Zen Cart alone... not to mention all the ones that we do not know about ... we cannot possibly write shipping methods to suite them all ... :cool:

Always happy to write custom modules for sites, but now you are getting into additional expenses if you are not a coder yourself ...