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Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:15 pm
by dadkind
Hello All,
In our store, we have a flat rate shipping charge for 90% of the items.

However, for the other 10% (heavy items), we need to be able to set a different shipping amount.

What is the best way to accomplish this? I don't see any shipping charge override options in the product definition.

Thanks,
-tomas

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:26 pm
by AbleMods
The way I do it is with warehouses.......

Create your flatrate shipping method

Create a new warehouse callled "FlatRate Whs"

Assign the new shipping method to the "FlatRate Whs" warehouse

Assign all your other shipping methods to whatever alternate warehouses you have configured. The key is that the FlatRate shipping method is only assigned to the new flatrate warehouse.

Now assign all your flatrate catalog products to the "FlatRate Whs" warehouse.

During checkout, AC7 will see the only possible shipping method associated with the product warehouse and present only the flatrate shipping method to the site visitor.

Keep in mind that AC7 is going to force multiple shipments for the order if the visitor buys both flatrate and non-flatrate items on the same order.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:12 am
by dadkind
OK. That sounds like a workable solution.

I will check with the client to make sure that he will be happy with this. I suspect that he will, since the other flat rate items will, in fact, be shipped separately anyway.

Thanks for the info!

-tomas
SolunarServices wrote:The way I do it is with warehouses.......

Create your flatrate shipping method

Create a new warehouse callled "FlatRate Whs"

Assign the new shipping method to the "FlatRate Whs" warehouse

Assign all your other shipping methods to whatever alternate warehouses you have configured. The key is that the FlatRate shipping method is only assigned to the new flatrate warehouse.

Now assign all your flatrate catalog products to the "FlatRate Whs" warehouse.

During checkout, AC7 will see the only possible shipping method associated with the product warehouse and present only the flatrate shipping method to the site visitor.

Keep in mind that AC7 is going to force multiple shipments for the order if the visitor buys both flatrate and non-flatrate items on the same order.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 11:35 am
by RichWendrock
Setting up special warehouses to control flat rate shipping works but it creates a new problem by complicating your combined shipping calculations. Or I should say it makes combined shipping impossible. For example, we sell handlebar kits for motorcycles. As you can imagine it takes a large box to ship the kit. We use flat rate to help the customer with the shipping charges. We make it less than it would otherwise be calculated. When the customer orders a set of grips at the same time they order the kit, we can place the grips in the same box and avoid the shipping cost. If you setup a warehouse to control a flat rate shipping for the handlebars and the grips are in a different warehouse, the customer will be charged an additional shipping fee for the grips. It appears we are loosing sales for accessories because of the way the flat rate shipping impacts combined shipping.

AbleCommerce must come up with a way to assign a flat rate shipping cost to a particular item or category of items. If you agree then please let you voice be heard.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:45 am
by RichWendrock
I have an update to this topic. I found a problem with using warehouse to control flat rate shipping. When you setup a warehouse to control Flat Rate shipping, the intent is to charge a flat fee for each item shipped from that warehouse. For example, we want to charge $40 to ship a handlebar kit. If the customer purchases two kits then he should be charged $80, once for each product. The problem I see is the system charges a flat fee of $40 no matter how many handlebar kits the customer purchases. That will not work, so it appears there is no way to apply a flat rate and calculate the total shipping charge correctly in all instances.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:56 am
by AbleMods
RichWendrock wrote: The problem I see is the system charges a flat fee of $40 no matter how many handlebar kits the customer purchases
That's because you created a flat-rate shipping method. Flat-rate is a one-time shipping charge regardless of quantity or price.

When you go to the Configure/Shipping Methods page, do you see the Custom Method area down in the lower left? Change the dropdown choice from Fixed Rate to 'Vary by Quantity'. Then type your method name and click the Add button.

Now you can configure the shipping rate to vary by quantity. Just create different levels for each quantity range i.e. 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5 etc. Each level has it's own shipping charge to associate with it.

Plus, you can still assign this vary-by-quantity shipping method to specific warehouses, zones etc. So you can still control which products will get applied to this shipping method via the warehouse assignments.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 9:31 am
by RichWendrock
Thanks for pointing that out. I added a new shipping method that allows for the increase by quantity. I did not see a way to define it as open ended, meaning to add one shipping rate for each product to infinity. It appears I must create a line for each quantity. I created a line from one to 10. So with that it means we give free shipping when the number of kits is beyond 10. Is there a way to code infinity?

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 9:52 am
by AbleMods
RichWendrock wrote:s there a way to code infinity?
Unfortunately not without significant customization.

Able calculations for shipping are in the compiled DLL. It requires full source code to change the behavior properly.

It is possible to alter the basket contents during checkout after the charges are calculated. But that solution is quirky at best, and runs the risk of creating new problems trying to solve old ones. I've had only limited success pulling it off and I wouldn't recommend going that route.

Another option would be to hire a developer to create a custom shipping gateway. The Able API does permit custom gateways without modifying full source. The custom gateway could handle computing the correct shipping charge based on your quantity rules using flat-rate amounts.

Since you're only using these methods on specific warehouses, the implementation from the Admin side would remain the same. You would simply create shipping methods from your new custom gateway instead of creating flate-rate or vary-by-quantity methods. Similar to how UPS/FedEx gateways work now.

Re: Setting a special Shipping charge for a single item

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 6:37 am
by RichWendrock
Just to let you know we recently abandon the idea of a special warehouse to control flat rate shipping. We found that when customers order over the phone they were ordering more accessories than those who order over the website. We changed to a method of calculating a flat rate shipping fee as a percentage of the total cost of the order. Initially we used a percentage that would make the cost of our flat rate item come out to about the same amount. Then we looked at the monthly sales report and calculated the percentage of shipping cost compared to total sales for each of the past 12 months. Once we had that number we adjusted our percentage up a little and now the calculation is working perfectly for us. We are seeing an increase in sales of accessories with our big ticket items. Now the customer can purchase accessories for a very small shipping fee, in most cases we can put the items in the same box and the customer sees only one shipping price. I highly recommend using a percentage of total sales to calculate shipping cost over the special warehouse method to provide a way to offer flat rate shipping.