Use zones for states instead of contries?

I am trying to set my cart up to work with a courier shipping services. Wight alone does not work for me, i need distances or Zones + weight. I was wondering if I can use the zone file for US States instead of countries? (if this is the best way for me to do it)

I bassicaly want to charge less for stuff close to me and more for stuff far away while factoring in package weight, but have it close enough to what my courier charges that I am not profiting or losing large margin on shipping miscalculations.

Any help or suggestions regarding this matter would be more appreciated. Thank you Zen cart Community!

You can define your zones in any way that suits you.
States would be good in your case; perhaps one zone for your state, one for neighboring states, etc.

awesome, thank you

I need to do something similar. I have a client that has products in different warehouses throughout the US. They ship from the closest warehouse. This would cause the shipping rate to be different depending on where the order originated (which state that is). How did you set your zones up?

Thanks.

If all the products are (normally) in stock at all the warehouses, you could calculate something like overlapping circles. Figuring which areas would be served from which warehouse, and then figuring shipping based on distance/cost from there, would give you the zone to place the address into. One zone would cover probably a lot of scattered areas.

If you have differences in warehouse stocking such that distribution patterns would be different between products, the problem becomes much more complex.