Need Major Help With SHIPPING! AUGH!!!

Hello I must say first I love Zen Cart but getting my head around problems with shipping is messing me up big time. I am turning to you the community to help since lots of you have made this work.

I have installed the Canada post shipping module & it works but here is my problem.

I have products of all sizes & shapes. I can choose 2 options when entering a product into my store for canada post.

product one
8" long x 4" wide x 3" Height it weights 1.1 LBS
Here is where it gets confusing if a check the box for product is ready to ship then I get correct quotes for 1 item but lets yes a customer orders 50 of these units. Canada Post see it as 50 boxes being shipped. so the price take a teriable jump up.

OK same product with the check box off which in this case canada post will try to put said product into a box a predefined by me. ok I made a box 8x8x8 = 21cmx21cmx21cm the extra cm is to allow bubble wrap with a max weight of 1.9 Kg or 4.18 LBS I set it this way so that if customer buys 2 of this item they will go into that box if they order 4 it goes to my next larger size of 10x10x10.

Now Next problem I have another product with same dimentions 8"x4"x3" but it only weights 0.68kg or 1.49 LBS in this case canada post on a order of 4 would try to put all 4 into the 10x10x10 box but in reality they can fit but I get waisted space. agian price too high. It will not put 2 each into 2 8x8x8 boxes it sees it has one complete order.

I tryed pluging in a RFQ mod & edit order Mod for request a shipping quote but it will not roll back the checkout steps so customer can pay via paypal.

Can you change the checkout procedure so that I customer orders then you give shipping quote then add in the shipping & then they pay then you ship.

or any other suggested method would be cool here at this time. It seams like I can't have my cake & eat it too. flate rate & zones can't work because of freight costs on large orders I will loose money with these unless it can be explained how to get around this problem.

changing the checkout steps would work the best since I can take the order & pick the boxes myself then do the shipping quote & then have customer pay full invoice through the shopping cart.

All suggestions welcome

And your site to see this is?

http://www.pre-ownedbarcode.com/store/

I don't have tons of stuff up yet as I have to figure this out

Waiting for approval

I will add this as well:
Not sure how this helps cause customer can't see the boxes canada post is grabbing I can't see them either. I have to call.

I few of my products have the check box on the product I was playing around with is a ls 4005 a trigger scanner going to either a 8x8x8 box or a 10x10x10 box I have another product that I have not uploaded with the same diamentions but it only weights 0.68kg's.
first was 2 scanners second is 4 scanners anything more it goes to my largest box 18x18x18 & I get wasted space

Once I noticed a problem I stopped adding stuff.

Oh i approved your account

Looking at this and the product that you specified

adding one nets
Canada Post (1 box(es) to be shipped) (Regular, 2007-10-18) $11.01

adding 6 nets
Canada Post (6 box(es) to be shipped) (Regular, 2007-10-18) $79.52

From the Canada post site and specifying for 6 a weight of 8.4 lbs and a package of 30x10x20 that might hold 6 of these this was provided as the 5 day cost
$29.65

A large difference and predicated upon the Canada post module defaults somehow??

Calling for costs is normally a deal breaker IMO and better to provide a cost that your customer can see immediately and either accept or reject.

What is your goal?

I would like to see the customer get the correct price & then checkout or process the order asking for a shipping quote which I can then do then update the order with correct shipping charges & then then pay checkout completed.

Your suggestions are welcome!

process the order asking for a shipping quote
If you are confirmed in this do not use any shipping and make them request a quote for shipping

ok but but if I do that then I would have to edit the order which I can do through another mod but it does not allow me to redisplay the paypal button so customer can pay the correct total price & then I ship.

Only way around this is give quote then send out a paypal invoice with the total price then when customer pays I just update the order to show completed.

I don't think I would like to buy from a store that way seams like some odd is going on.

If I can get the a good working list of boxes from small to large with max values for for weight for each box I might be ok & have the larger products checked off that they are ready to ship.

I agree with your analysis and why I atated that I thought that this would be a reason for customers to abandon their purchases and asked you what your goal was and you replied with "request a shipping quote"....

I think that you can use another method and strike a balance that will appear much more reasonable but will also mean that on some you collect more than required and others will be much closer to the actual - and can be tailored so that you very seldom charge less than required

This other method what would you do if this was your store. Please suggest something that I can try out.

There are a couple of others, and I do not have all the details of the sizes, proces, and weights of your items.

You might create a spread sheet for this and use a statistical tool "peredo" analysis to see where these fall as to price, weight or cost and select the one with the least variability.

Pad the fee a bit to cover the outliers and then use this method. The table rate, multi-table rate(mod), per weight, per unit, or zone if you intend on shipping world wide are all candidates.

Alternatively, you can also look at UPS or Fedex as these are less restrictive on pkg size.