Shipping costs calculated per product instead of per order

[Alexis Podevin]

Hi everyone,

We're currently facing an issue with our store regarding shipping fees.

Here’s an example:
We sell two physical products, like a bottle of water (product 1) and a glass (product 2). Each product has its own price and individual shipping cost.

The problem is that when both products are ordered together, the shipping costs are simply added together, instead of being recalculated based on the total weight of the order. Ideally, the shipping fee should be optimized when multiple items are shipped together.

For example:

• Product 1 alone → €5 shipping

• Product 2 alone → €7 shipping

• Both together → €12 shipping, when a single, combined shipping cost based on total weight would make more sense.

We looked into using Excel Product Pricing to manage this, but we ran into another issue:
When we create a rule in the Excel file, it applies to each product individually, not to the entire order. So we’re back to the same problem — shipping is calculated per item, not based on the combined order.

Does anyone know how we can set up a global shipping rule based on total order weight instead of per-product rules?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[west-digital.fr]

Hello,

The behavior that you describe is famous, and unfortunately works as designed by XMPie - as you may remember, I call it "the paradox of the A0 Poster + Thimble Shipping".

First of all, some clarification may be needed here: by "Excel Product Pricing", I assume that you are referring to the pricing feature, which is located in each Product's "Product Pricing Setup > Set Prices" tab, aren't you?

Indeed, out-of-the-box, this feature can only take the current item into account, regardless you use the legacy "Pricing Engine Calculator" or the "Excel Pricing Engine" - wheras custom Pricing Engines - developped with the uStore PluginBase API - could do otherwise.

But I would not use such engines, to calculate Shipping costs - I would use them, as XMPie designed: to calculate the cost of the item itself.

On the opposite, the Excel Shipping Pricing Engine, a uStore option developped by the XMPie Professional Services Team, is aware of the whole Shopping Cart contents, ZIP codes, weights (if you took the time to specify them somewhere, regardless it's in uStore - in each and every Product settings - or in the Excel file itself), etc.

I would this feature, to calculate so-called "complex" Shipping prices, including with the total weight of the Cart, as I understand you want to.

west-digital.fr