How to write "weights" values - No hair left

I am trying to get my shipping weights sorted out but getting nowhere fast.

I wish to charge in Kg with the lowest shipping weight being grams.

first problem is how to list the weight range simple? not really what ever i put down within the ranges the shipping estimater only takes the FIRST weight in the range. So for example

100:4.50,200:5.00,300:6.00 etc etc with 1KG as 1000:9.00

So if a item is in my cart which weighs 300grams(£6.00) it will show as £4.50 (100g).

i have tried two ways to list the weights, as above as 100g and by 0.100g and neither seems to work. So which is the correct way (i have read in the zones.php that weight values do not matter) to stop shipping defaulting to the first value 100:4.50

I have also tried this in both Zone and Zones Table Rate

I can feel myself being pulled back to cubecart over this however Zen Cart is great because the mods are free and it has more functionality

Is there any Zen Cart shipping gurus who can help please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm definitely not a guru but have mine set very similar to yours and it all works perfectly. I only have table rate enabled though and use price rather than weight.

Thanks for the reply, I need to use weight for overseas customers and can see no way around it. I was toying with shipping on price for UK customers and weight for overseas but thats another issue

The first thing to decide is what weight LABEL you wish to display on your site.

You say you want to work in Kilograms (Kg), but that some items will ship in fractions of a Kg, eg: 100 GRAMS (100g).

If you decide that your shop's weight LABEL is " Kg " (or Kgs), then the aritmetic you apply throughout the shipping configurations will be decimalisations of Kg.

So,

100g will be input as 0.1
250g will be input as 0.25
375g will be input as 0.375
1Kg will be input as 1.0
1.25Kg will be input as 1.25
10Kg will be input as 10.0

When you ADD your products, in the "Weight" input field, you will apply this principle, so:-

Product A weighs 645 GRAMS

You will input (into the weight field) 0.645

DON'T put the weight label into the input field - just the numeric value.

Now, to configure Table Rate shipping, you apply the same decimalisation:

0.100:2.50,0.200:5.00,0.500:7.50,1.0:12.50

This says:-

"For items weighing UP TO 0.1 of a Kg, charge $2.50"
"For items weighing FROM 0.1 to 0.2 of a Kg, charge $5.00"
"For items weighing FROM 0.2 to 0.5 of a Kg, charge $7.50"
"For items weighing FROM 0.5 to 1.0 Kg, charge $12.50"

Use the developer tool kit (ADMIN>>>TOOLS>>>developer tool kit) to find instances of the existing weight label (probably the default, "lb" and/or "lbs").

You will now see a list of core files where the label(s) ("lb" and/or "lbs").

You can open these files and edit them to change "lb" to "Kg" - (all are likely to be in folders in the "languages" directory tree).

Now, your shoppers will see all references to "weight" as "Kg", not "Lbs".

You will also need to look at your SHIPPING TARE SETTINGS (ADMIN>>>CONFIGURATION>>>SHIPPING/PACKAGING), where zencart calculates the probable weight of your packaging and adds this to the product weight. You can alter the variables to suit your chosen weight format, and the nature of the packaging you use.

Thank you for the comprehensive reply fairestcape.

i Have tried the decimial approach as i use these in my EP files but must be missing something so will have another go.

i will double check that i have changed lb to Kg again some may have slipped through

thanks again

Just remember that the LABEL you choose has no influence on the calculations... it is just a label.

You could choose GRAMS as a label if you like, but if you do, then the arithmetic is different:-

If GRAMS is chosen as your label, then:

A 1kg product is entered as 1000.0 (because 1Kg = 1000g)
A half kilogram product is entered as 500.0

... and so on.

And this numeratic convention is used throughout the site - when you ADD products, and when you define shipping weight settings.

You must be CONSISTENT with your numeration (relative to your chosen label).

You can't - for example - put a value of "1" in your product weight, thinking that this represents "1Kg", and then in your shipping put a value of 100 (when you're configuring a weight of 100 grams). Your shipping will read this as 100Kg. The correct value to input in your shipping (in this case) is 0.1 .

Your calculations may be "out of kilter" because of the TARE settings (see the last point in my previous post).