Shipping by weight & country + state/region

[Clocked0ne]

Hi.

I'm almost ready to go live with a site for a client, but we are struggling to find a suitable solution for shipping because the shipping options seem too restrictive - anyone else configuring a site for the UK market I'm sure will have found this too.

I need to configure the following in addition to a Standard flat rate shipping charge:

Scottish highlands & islands charge applies up to 20 kilo's of £25.95
Northern Ireland charge applies upto 10 kilo's of £25.95
Channel Islands charge applies up to 10 kilos of £45.95
Isle of man charge applies up to 10 kilo's of £45.95
Isle of Wight charge applies up to 20 kilos of £25.95
Dublin charge applies up to 10 kilos of  £45.95
Rest of Eire charge applies up to 10 kilos of £49.50

This kind of scenario is standard for UK couriers, there are no one-shipment-fits-all logistics companies that will work in the UK without these weight based surcharges for outlying areas, channel islands, etc.

I have edited the table _virtumart_states in the db to modify the (rather pointless) England/Wales/Scotland/Ireland to match the above, adding a few new options, so now these regions are selectable in the chekout for Shipping. Great!

However, shipping options can only currently be set by Weight and Country, not by State/Region also. I am aware that Tax Calculations can be used to add additional costs for a State/Region, but these calculations cannot be limited by order weight too.

So, is there any way I can set up VM2 to also allow configuring shipment fixed by Country + State? If not this seems completely inflexible for the UK market guys!

Looking forward to hearing a developers view.

[John2400]

Clocked0ne,

Seems like a lot of work ? just wondering why you are not using the post codes to set the shipping rates?

There are quite a few - UK clients on VM and I have never seen this issue before -

* maybe some just estimate a flat rate for a few close to a post code areas and change them for say
'The issle of Wight Po30 - Po41. ( have say three weight settings only)?'

[Clocked0ne]

I have tried the postcodes before and it did not seem to work with alphanumerical postcodes, only for American numerical zip codes?

The reality is it should be far easier to set shipping based on states/regions - at the moment these are completely redundant in VM2 except for applying tax for shipping - having said that, I would be okay with using post codes if someone could point out how to get it to work. If I have to set up a huge number of ranges for every letter combination then it will be pointless and far, far more work.

[Clocked0ne]

Well I've been plugging away at this and with no joy. I still think this is a serious development oversight for the UK market - the fact that Zip Ranges are only 00000-99999 American style numbers is bad enough, it simply does not work with UK Postcodes.

At the moment anyone can choose from all the shipping options because they cannot be set by region. Customers should be given a simple and easy view of available options for their delivery address area, not options for the entire country. VM2 cannot provide this it seems!

Really tired and fed up of having to hack the site to get things working

There must be someone here with a UK shop??

[melina]

Hi there! I have the same problem here, and I have an online shop for Argentina. We have too many zip codes and they have no real order so working with zip codes is something I cant even start thinking about.
The normal way to work would be by state. I have joomla 2.5 with VM 2 and I am still trying to find someone giving me an answer regarding this. I think there must be a way to change the plugin a bit to add states after countries but cant find it yet...
Frustrated here too!
=(

[Clocked0ne]

I tried to look at modifying the plugin myself melina, but I am not a php developer so I am not even sure where to begin with the code. I'm sure this would be easy for one of the developers!

[eldravo]

I have a similar problem.

Hopefully I explain myself the right way. (sorry for my English).

I own a restaurant and have delivery service. We charge our customers depending on distance. Actually we do not measure exact meters or kilometers. On my country we have zipcodes that comprehend larger areas. We have as well a figure called "Colonia" or neighborhood which group about 20 to 30 blocks. For my business to choose neighborhood instead of zip code would be better.

My intention is to charge a delivery fee depending on each neighborhood.

Under the respective MySQL table (jos_virtuemart_userfields) I have added this field called "Colonia" with a dropdown menu consisting of approx. 140 neighborhoods which I added manually under the MySQL table (jos_virtuemart_userfield_values). On this last table I have added another integer field called "costo_envio" (or shipment_cost in English).

My intention is to manually insert, under the "costo_envio" field, those 140 costs (one for each neighborhood). Then assign the shipment cost depending on the value stored under "costo_envio".

This is where I am stocked.

I found a table called "jos_virtuemart_shipmentmethods". Under this table there is a field called "shipment_params" with values like this: shipment_logos=""|countries=["138"]|zip_start=""|zip_stop=""|weight_start=""|weight_stop=""|weight_unit="KG"|nbproducts_start=""|nbproducts_stop=""|orderamount_start=""|orderamount_stop=""|cost="25"|package_fee=""|tax_id="-1"|free_shipment=""|

Instead of a constant like this: |cost="25"|, I would like to insert the value stored on the "costo_envio" field under the table "jos_virtuemart_userfield_values". This way if someone register they have to chose a "Colonia" or neighborhood (required field) from the dropdown menu. When choosing their respective neighborhood they are choosing the respective shipment cost.

I do not know how to continue with this. In other words I would like to assign a shipment cost depending on the neighborhood choose by the customer under the registration page.

If someone can finish what I started, I think this could be a solution for assigning shipment cost based on any other field like Country, State, Zipcode, Neighborhood, or whatever variable you want the customer to choose.

Regards,

[Clocked0ne]

Eldravo, did you get anywhere with this? We ended up changing our entire shipping scheme in the end, it's far less flexible and meant we had to incorporate shipping costs into the product prices but at least it will work and be easy for people.

[letswebify]

@Clocked0ne - Did you get the solution / hack to establish state wise shipping charges in VM2 with J!2.5? We have built an website for India and desperately need "Shipping by state".

I really don't understand who come such a simple feature is not part of VM2?

[melina]

Well, no shipping by state found yet.... if someone knows about it let us know!
I am still looking for it.
=)

[Clocked0ne]

Hi guys,

No, sorry, as I mentioned in my previous post we had to come up with a completely new shipping scheme to work around the software. I find it bizarre that this isn't standard either, now customers will always see shipping options for regions that do no concern them

[Tikkiro]

It's just such a pity that the upgrade from VM 1 to VM 2 seems to have destroyed many things that were working wonderfully in the previous version.  I'm also in the UK & while I don't have your particular issues I am still having plenty of others that I've neither been able to fix nor to get help with, so appreciate your suggestion of just adding the shipping cost onto the price instead - never thought of that!!! 

I know the developers can't please all of us, but I'd hate to end up switching to a different ecommerce platform if they can't fix these problems in future versions.

[letswebify]

@Tikkiro - I 100% agree with you.

Further, see extensions.virtuemart.net - most of the extension categories are still empty; they have only 6-7 extensions that are listed there. Same with VM2 templates; very few are available as of today. And further, Checkout of VM2 is not really "single page / one page checkout". And its flow is quite confusing.

In all, there is big scope to improve. Otherwise m****to, p*****shop and o***cart are already there in the market to churn VM customers.

[eldravo]

Does someone have an answer for this topic?

I´m still stocked here.

[John2400]

maybe look at it by tax ,

You can add a tax per country and state - so maybe do it that way.