Shipping costs associated with a dropdown selection

[Antonimous]

I sell coffee beans by the pound at www.thebeanstock.com and have a dilemma that I hope you can help me with.

 

I have listings for 1 pound, 2, 5, and bulk (20 lbs) for each varietal (ie. Colombia Supremo). The more beans you buy the cheaper the "per pound" price.

 

Using Col Supremo as an example, currently I have to list each Colombia Supremo four different times with separate prices and the actual weights (please recall that when listing a product we indicate the weight so the shipping calculator knows how much to calculate). What I want to be able to do is list Colombia Supremo just once and offer a drop down selection menu showing 1,2,5, and bulk(20) with their associated discounted pricing. (the more you buy the cheaper per pound)

 

I know how to do all that..... but here is the dilemma for what I want to do:

 

Lets say you are a customer in my Colombia Supremo listing and wish to buy 5 pounds so you click on the drop down and choose the 5 lbs. option. (Here I can add the price or dollar increase for the 5 pounds and understand all that), but what tells the shipping calculator to add 5 pounds to the shipping costs? In fact, if my drop down has a value of 1, 2, 5, and 20 pounds how do we acknowledge the weight?

 

Put very simply to clarify: If I were selling widgets and the optional addon item in the dropdown was 25 pounds or 100 pounds? I can add an additional item fee, but now how do I get the shipping calculator to add 25 or 100 pounds depending on the choice?

 

Can you help me? :cry:

[active]

I also have a drop down box shipping different tire sizes. They can range GREATLY in size and weight. I need a way to have shipping prices change based on the option (tire size), not just the product...

I think that at this point the only way is going to be adding a field to the database to store weight with each product attribute. Then use this weight instead of the standard product weight.

Maybe we could put a disclaimer stating that weights change based on tire size (or size of bag of coffee) and that shipping costs will be adjusted to reflect this. Then we could just do that manually. It seems iffy, because then you would pretty much have to use the CC option in the payment modules and enter every order manually.

Another option might be to include an "average" shipping cost for that product in the marginal price difference for the option. On some orders money would be lost, others it would be gained. That is the LEAST accurate option though.

 

What does everyone else think?

[Antonimous]

Hmmm... I was hoping that by now I would have heard someone say there was a simple fix. I would take a complex fix by now. The only solution I could come up with was to actually list my product 4 different times calling them (1 pound)(2pounds)(5pounds) and (*bulk). It is a real pain in the "you know what" to have to list the product 4 times everytime. To make matters worse the products were then lined up single file vertically meaning one would have to pan downward and try to figure out what was going on. Not good!

 

I ended up getting a mod allowing a 4 panel across column which at least lines them up like soldiers and folks can better figure out what is what here. If you would like to see an example of what I am talking about take a quick peak here: http://www.thebeanstock.com/catalog/defaul...facturers_id=10

 

So now someone can make a purchase of an item and choose among the weights.....it will calculate appropriately and I don't have to worry about it. It would be so much nicer though if one could choose a drop-down menu within 1 product and choose. I could then offer products in 1 pound increments 1-100 or more if I wanted too.

 

Anyone out there got the real deal? I would like to change this band-aid fix.

[Guest]

have a look at this thread

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=10

 

this describes how to add a weight to your options