Jax2 Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 Hi everyone ... I have a situation where I am desperately in need of someone who can think this through a bit more clearly than I can and perhaps provide me with some much needed suggestions... here is my situation: I run a gift / doll store. I offer many smaller gifts as well as very heavy, very expensive dollhouses. I currently have my shipping set up as such: up to $50.00:$9.45; Up to $100.00:17%; Up to $100000.00:16% So far, this has always been enough to cover what I actually have to pay for shipping. Now, I am running into a problem when it comes to the dollhouses. First of all, the company I use charges an $8.00 dropship fee, which I will need to incorporate into the shipping, or I could, I suppose, simply increase the price of the items by 8.00 ... however, I need to figure out how I can charge a shipping fee on these items that actual reflects the real shipping cost. Cost is based on wherever the person lives in relation to the warehouse, how heavy the dollhouse is, and current UPS rates ... in other words, I have NO idea what the actual shipping price will be until I specifically order that product for the customer ... Using the above table rates will NOT work for this. If a dollhouse costs $800.00, that would mean the table rate is 128.00 (at 16%) ... This could possibly be much higher than the actual shipping price ... I know I could lower the %, but the other issue is I have some items that are just as expensive, but weigh far less and have a far lower shipping cost ... I am so at a loss here. I have no idea how I should properly set this up. I have the % table rate shipping set up as shown, but no other shipping modules being used. I would try to use the "Specific shipping cost for each item" module I saw, but again, I do not know how much the shipping will be exactly until I put the actual order in ... Any advice would be highly appreciated ... thank you!
Guest Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 Aaron, You can install something like this to set a shipping price for each product: http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/1333 you can also add this, which allows the customer to request a shipping quote on a particular item before going through the checkout process: http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/6675 Chris
jigga1234 Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 This is an option you may not have considered and it requires no coding :) Have your standard shipping rates and then have a note that states for some items that are heavy or unusual dimensions extra shipping rates may apply. We then just phone the customer explain to them the extra cost give them the opportunity to arrange shipping for themselves (they rarely do) and then just ask them to transfer over the required amount via your payment gateway.
arthurhudin Posted November 25, 2009 Posted November 25, 2009 Hi everyone ... I have a situation where I am desperately in need of someone who can think this through a bit more clearly than I can and perhaps provide me with some much needed suggestions... here is my situation: I run a gift / doll store. I offer many smaller gifts as well as very heavy, very expensive dollhouses. I currently have my shipping set up as such: up to $50.00:$9.45; Up to $100.00:17%; Up to $100000.00:16% So far, this has always been enough to cover what I actually have to pay for shipping. Now, I am running into a problem when it comes to the dollhouses. First of all, the company I use charges an $8.00 dropship fee, which I will need to incorporate into the shipping, or I could, I suppose, simply increase the price of the items by 8.00 ... however, I need to figure out how I can charge a shipping fee on these items that actual reflects the real shipping cost. Cost is based on wherever the person lives in relation to the warehouse, how heavy the dollhouse is, and current UPS rates ... in other words, I have NO idea what the actual shipping price will be until I specifically order that product for the customer ... Using the above table rates will NOT work for this. If a dollhouse costs $800.00, that would mean the table rate is 128.00 (at 16%) ... This could possibly be much higher than the actual shipping price ... I know I could lower the %, but the other issue is I have some items that are just as expensive, but weigh far less and have a far lower shipping cost ... I am so at a loss here. I have no idea how I should properly set this up. I have the % table rate shipping set up as shown, but no other shipping modules being used. I would try to use the "Specific shipping cost for each item" module I saw, but again, I do not know how much the shipping will be exactly until I put the actual order in ... Any advice would be highly appreciated ... thank you! Hey I am a business owner who owns bikes and imports them from the U.S. I see your dilemna in that you're constantly paying for every package. I use this company called Shipito. They compound objects into bigger boxes so you don't pay extra fees. Pretty cheap ( 8.50 per compounded package) and so far reliable. Hope I helped, Arthur
Jax2 Posted November 26, 2009 Author Posted November 26, 2009 First, thank you to those of you who have replied so far, and they would all be valid points if my situation was a bit different... unfortunately, I can't really implement them as they are ... let me give you a little more detail in hopes I can get someone who has done something like this before ... I work with 5 different companies ... these companies drop ship my products, which means, they all charge different shipping costs, some add a small fee for the drop shipping, some do not ... some charge shipping by the number of items, some do not ... Let me give you a quick example. Company 1 charges me by the weight of the product + 8.00 per order. So, if the customer order 3 items from that company, the shipping would be 8.00 + actual shipping prices. If they order 2 items, it is STILL only 8.00, plus actual shipping cost. If I charge 8.00 per item to cover that fee, that's going to be 24.00 extra, ON TOP of shipping, when instead it should only be 8.00 ... so there, I need if from this company, add 8.00 to total after shipping cost is calculated ... Another company I work with charges by the number of items shipped ... so 1 item = $x.xx shipping, 2 items = $xx.xx shipping ...etc ... Yet another company charges by total amount of order ... so again, 1 - 10 dollars = 2.50 shipping, 11 - 20 = 4.00 ...etc. Unfortunately, unless someone can think of something better, the ONLY option I would have is to manually figure out how much their total shipping is, edit the order, and then have them pay, but the problem I have with that is that it seems extremely unprofessional to me, as in, it tends to make my business look "cheap" I guess. Perhaps it's just me and no one else would think that, but I don't want to find out that's the case and losing sales ... I hate to be a burden asking for this much help, but I'm truly at a loss on this one ... it seems like I would need three separate shipping modules all combined ... :(
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