Anyone have experience with internet shopping carts? Need website help

Need help with shipping charges for multiple items.

[A34Charger]

Hi, new guy here,


I need some help with a shopping cart for a website as it relates to shipping. I have a small business and hired this company to do a website for me.

The problem I'm having is getting their shopping cart to calculate shipping for multiple items of varying sizes without overcharging the customer. In other words, if a customer choses 5 items, the cart is adding up 5 separate shipping charges. Trying to figure out how to get it to calculate a more accurate quote, or some other alternative.

Appreciate any ideas/suggestions !

[piatkow]

Most sites chicken out and just apply a fixed charge. If the item requires a special shipping rate then that is built into the price.

[ectect]

It sounds like your cart is set up to have shipping calculated on packing products separately. I would ask them if there is an option to pack products together.

[HRoth]

I have been using Mal's cart. It uses units that are hidden in the page html. You could figure the units as weight or oversize. I have a base rate for small widgets and then a larger base rate for bigger ones. I give a unit of one to all the small widgets. Then the larger shipping rate starts at over 99 units, and the larger widgets have units figured as weight. This allows me to offer basically a flat rate on the small widgets (a sum of 1-99 gets a shipping rate of 3.50) and a rate based on weight on the larger widgets (100 = one ounce and is the base priority mail rate of 5.50). That cart will also allow figuring different shipping based on location, although it's complicated. You could do for instance 1-99 small widgets (if you have them), 100-999 in terms of ounces, and say 1000+ in terms of oversize.

It took me years to get my shipping configured so that now it is pretty accurate. I think it's one of the most difficult things about ecommerce.

[machine11]

If its not already included, why dont you code/set things up by weight?

[A34Charger]

Thanks for the info guys. The site currently uses weight, but it overcharges.