Need halp with PayPal shopping cart

How to allow variable shipping costs depending on destination?

[Polly]

I don't know if anyone can help me. I'm just setting up an ecommerce facility on my website www.nordicmusic.co.uk - selling CDs. I'd like to use PayPal for this but cannot find out whether it is possible to vary the shipping costs depending on the destination of the order. As far as I can see you can either have a set amount per item for shipping, or it can be calculated as a percentage of the total order price. What I need is a set amount per item but which varies depending on whether the order is to be shipped within the UK (where I'm based) or overseas. Does anyone know if this is possible? I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks!

[watercrazed]

You could have a button to ship internationally that would add a fixed amount to the shopping cart for international shipment, that would be in addition to the standard shipping cost. Maybe put in on your customized exit screen? I have not tried anything like that paypals support could probably help.

[Birdman]

You would probably need to run your own script, which would ask buyer for postal code, and then dynamically create the buy link to PayPal with the proper shipping added.

[Polly]

Thanks both of you for your replies. I dont have any knowledge of scripts, just basic HTML, so doubt I could generate that.

Maybe there is another way - a different shopping cart facility which allows you to specify more options? Can you use different shopping carts with PayPal?

[Birdman]

Do you need to alter shipping per region, or just a flat rate for overseas shipping? If your overseas shipping is a flat rate also, the script would be simple.

[Polly]

It would just be a flat rate. And I should learn about scripting!
I'm also thinking I really should have a database driven shop as we have a large number of products...

[mivox]

You could set up an additional shopping cart item named "International Shipping" that added the extra flat rate to their order total... it's a bit of a hack, but I can't think why it wouldn't work.

[Polly]

I think that's a really good idea, thanks, - I could an 'add to cart' button for shipping, treating shipping as if it's a product. But I'm not sure how to add this to the procedure, making it an integral part of the transaction, so that the customer couldn't go to the 'view cart' page without having added shipping. I'll ahve to look on the paypal site again. I've come across another website in the Uk where they've actually created seperate buttons for each product - one for shipping within the UK and one for overseas - but as I have about 200 products this would take years to set up. I'd rather find a way that customers add the shipping, and just have to press 1 button per transaction.

[aus_dave]

Are you using an actual shopping cart script or have you just used HTML and static pages? osCommerce is an excellent open-source (free) shopping cart script that is database driven. There are other add-on modules for postage and payment gateways that would allow you to do all that you ask and more probably.

Be prepared to spend some time installing and customising it though ;).

[mivox]

I think the PayPal system allows adding "options" onto the items you're selling, which add $ to the item price when selected. If so, you could also have domestic and international shipping as options for each item (instead of making shipping a separate item...).

Also, you could check out the features offered with Mal's Ecommerce, which is a free shopping cart system designed to use with PayPal accounts. I've heard good things about ease of use with Mal's, but I've never tried it myself.