Freight Override

[newagearbor]

Is there a way to override freight for certain products?

The bulk of items we sell are heavy goods and odd sizes (chainsaw parts, accessories, etc.) and so I have set up a base charge of $15 for freight and we just use a courier company to deliver.

However, we do get the occasional guy who orders just 1 screw or 1 bolt .... costs a few cents and easily fits into an envelope which can go to the post office for 50 cents. My question is ... can I set up a different freight charge for those items? Is there a setting on the product/category page to override the freight base charge?

I don't really want to go through the trouble of having to weigh every single item in our shop and so just wondering if there is a shortcut around it. Any input from the community would be useful. Thanks!

[d.ferguson]

Why not use the freight by weight option - but dont think of it as 'actual' weight.

Use the freight table as a way of calculating freight for arbitary units of weight.

Example:

Say your small items were given all a weight value of '1'. (screws, bolts, pens etc)
Your bigger items - that you would normally charge $15 dollars for get a weight value of say '100'

Then - setup your freight table like this:

Base rates (all of them) - $0.00

Weight table:

0g -> 99g = $3.30 local $3.30 domestic $9.90 International (all examples only)
100g -> 200g = $15.00 local $17.00 domestic etc
101g -> 300g = $20.00 local $25 domestic etc

Your using the 'weight' calculation with arbitary values which help you get the freight rate amounts that you desire.

[d.ferguson]

You could even make the freight table more specific..

example.. instead of having 0g -> 99g = $3.30 local $3.30 domestic $9.90 International (all examples only)

which would allow someone to buy 1 or upto 99 bolts for only $3.30 local shipping.. you could break this up..

0g -> 5g $3.30 local $3.30 domestic
6g -> 9g $4.40 local $4.80 domestic
10g -> 20g $5.50 local $6.00 domestic
etc
etc
100g -> 200g = $15.00 local $17.00 domestic etc
101g -> 300g = $20.00 local $25 domestic etc

Using the above table, if a customer purchased say 1 bolt, 1 pen and 1 screw (total of '3' weight units they would pay $3.30 local freight.

If they purchased 1 bolt, 1 pen, 1 screw and one chainsaw (total of 103 weight units) they would pay $15.00 local.

This becomes very flexible!

[newagearbor]

Thanks, Dave! Sounds like a good idea ... I'll give that a try.

[newagearbor]

Is there a quicker way to enter the weights than doing it one by one? I've got about a thousand products in the database, and only a handfull will be getting the weight of "1". Do I need to enter the "100" individually for all the others or is there a faster way to do it?

[d.ferguson]

Practice -> this will make it faster :p

[newagearbor]

Is there a way to make the freight charge appear on the shopping cart? It seems to only appear once the customer has checked out. Since I'm using different weights and freight charges, I want the clients to see how much the freight is costing them before they check out.

[d.ferguson]

You must know where the customer is located before being able to calculate freight - hence the reason its displayed after the address collection phase.

[niko]

How about a little text line that says input your postcode to see cost of freight, which will accumulate based on multiple purchases or single purchases? It could be part of the banner or something?

[d.ferguson]

Yeah - the freight system could use some improvment. Im sure the developers are working hard on this. Being able to 'get' the freight price easier/quicker from the customers perspective is important.