Combined shipping

[AnonymousDev]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at combined shipping for different products sold on my store. I've been trying to get this to work and thought I had but it seems it's still not working the way I'd like it to so I'm seeking a little guidance how I should be setting this up correctly using combined weights.

I have product 1 with a certain weight, shipping equals $7.45.

I have product 2 that can be a flat rate item as it can be posted in an envelope at $2.00.

When the two products are added to the shopping cart both shipping costs are added together equalling $9.45.

Is there a way to only charge the larger shipping option or a better way to go about this?

Thanks

[opentype]

12 minutes ago, AnonymousDev said:

Is there a way to only charge the larger shipping option …?

I don’t think so and even if that would be an option, it would cause new problems, because there wouldn’t be a guarantee that the higher price covers the shipping costs for all the things in the shopping cart. 

If you go with weight-based global shipping rates, you can of course stop the current behavior of having the shipping costs add up. 

[AnonymousDev]

Thanks for your quick reply opentype.

If stopping the current behavior of having the shipping costs add up, by that would you mean it would stop all other products adding up the shipping also? e.g. I have other items with shipping that costs $11.45 due to weight, it would still add those I assume if the weight adds up to $11.45.

At the moment I've added a temporary measure for a forum member to select free shipping as an option. This would cause problems in the future though as it is relying on the good faith of the member to select that option only when they have ordered other products. I tried to have a selection of products offer free shipping when there were multiple items in the shopping cart but it didn't seem to work when combined with a weighted shipping product.

[opentype]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousDev said:

If stopping the current behavior of having the shipping costs add up, by that would you mean it would stop all other products adding up the shipping also? e.g. I have other items with shipping that costs $11.45 due to weight, it would still add those I assume if the weight adds up to $11.45.

You would remove all product-based shipping rates and set global weight-based tiers. Then only those tiers will be used to calculate the shipping costs. The cart adds up the weight of all products (including single items bought several times) and uses whatever tier is set for that weight. 

[AnonymousDev]

Ah yeah ok. I kinda need a few products to have completely different shipping methods unfortunately as some products can fit in an envelope e.g. car decals then I have other products that I use weight based shipping like t-shirts and hoodies as some people purchase 1 t-shirt, others purchase 1 t-shirt and 1 hoodie for example. I just had a member attempt to purchase a car decal and a t-shirt. I can easily throw a decal in with the t-shirt but don't want to charge two lots of shipping.

I might have to go for the free shipping option and hope that most people only choose that option when they have actually purchased multiple products.

[opentype]

5 minutes ago, AnonymousDev said:

Ah yeah ok. I kinda need a few products to have completely different shipping methods unfortunately as some products can fit in an envelope e.g. car decals …

That doesn’t mean you can’t use global weight-based shipping rates. The car decals will be so light that your lowest “envelope tier” applies automatically. If a shirt is added, the sum of the weight makes the next tier kick in, so you send a standard parcel. Unless someone orders 100 shirts and the shirt weight is multiplied by 100 and so another weight tier kicks in …

What I suggest is just about the shipping costs. It doesn’t matter at all wether you send it as envelope or parcel. 

[AnonymousDev]

This does work for my decals, however I'm also adding a few products and already have a couple that are light but don't fit into an envelope or the postal services definition of flat envelope. These items even though very light still have to be posted as a parcel. Unfortunately I can't send a product with a shipping cost of $2.00 then pay my shipping company or postal service $7.45 for the shipping, I'd have to say bye bye to my profit.