By-weight shipping configuration?

This is an improvement request.

In most countries shipping cost is determined by the weight of the item, and from time to time items can be light enough to stay within the initial fee if the quantity is small enough.

I would suggest allow a weight-based shipping rate configuration that can fit almost all models: an initial cost that covers a limited quantity of items and weight, an additional fee per additional weight unit (e.g. 100 grams), and additional fee per group of additional items. This can be complicated but it is the most flexible way I can think of.

Another vote for shipping cost configuration by weight.

I have a configuration option that makes packages slip from 4oz to 5oz, which adds $3 to international shipping (USPS First Class). However, domestically the difference is negligible, so I don’t want to price the difference into the option.

Shipping used to be by weight, but it turns out that doesn’t really capture all shipping costs accurately, either.

Short of an API connection to a shipping quote tool (which would only cover supported carriers anyway), no shipping costing method is going to be 100% accurate; you’re going to be a bit over on some orders and a bit under on some. Other than improving the way addons/options are handled for shipping calculations, I think the current system is a reasonable tradeoff.

China Post calculate the shipping cost by both weight and geography - sending the same package to different countries costs differently. This means using the current system I have to set up no less than 8 shipping rules for each weight class and having 4 weight classes means have 40 rules to maintain. It can get very complicated really fast and get extremely error-prone.

Good points.

Having a way to assign additional shipping cost to product options would be good enough.

Unfortunately right now with my product option, it seems that only people where I’m under (i.e. international shipping) include it. This is probably because I priced it so that I at least break even (my cost + shipping), which makes it overpriced for domestic customers.

My pricing policy is that the shipping & handling fee covers only postage + bus trips to and from the post office + tindie fee + payment handling fee, and prices for individual products includes costs and labor making them and some reasonable profit margin.

My suggestion for this:

• For every product there is a shipping weight (including all packaging, and if the courier also considers the volumetric weight, include that too)
• For every shipping rule there is a base fee and item count and weight covered by this base fee, an additional fee per extra item, an additional fee per extra unit of weight, a maximum item count and a maximum package weight, all optional.

This will allow me to set up rules like this:

• China Post Registered Airmail Paquet Petit (to USA, Canada, Australia, NZ and Europe): US$4.49 base fee for 100 gram, and add US$0.50 per 100 gram over base fee, and 2 kilogram maximum.

Bump.

I’m experiencing more and more challenges with the current way shipping cost for multiple items is handled. Currently I have no choice than to either significantly overcharge customers that order 2 items or eat a significant loss when a customer orders 3 items or 2 items with an option that adds 1oz.

1 item: 5oz (incl. packaging)
2 items: <8oz
3 items: 11oz
2 items w/ option: 10oz

First Class international shipping excl. Canada is roughly $12-13 for 4-8 ounces, and jumps to $20-22 above 8 ounces.

Even worse when you have multiple products with different weights in your store. Will the base rate be charged twice when a user orders both? I.e. $24 in the above example? Or the additional rate picked randomly from one of the two?

In conclusion, I completely agree with maxtc that the current solution while simple is not practical. At a minimum there should be a weight per product and option on the product page, and then a base fee plus cost/weight schedule for each shipping rate.