Hi, I'm tearing my hair out over the shipping system in the cart. Maybe it's just that I've missed some essential tip somewhere, but I've spent hours trawling the forums and no answers.

We sell books. Each book weighs something different to the next book, and therefore the default settings for postage (a) won't work across the board for all the books, and (b) don't offer enough options anyway so that the customer from across the world can choose his preferred method of shipping.

Once I have set the Shipping Options, that's it - every single book has to abide by those options. So a 600g book's shipping will cost the same as a 300g book, no matter what. This is clearly not fair to the customer.

PLEASE: How do I create a shopping cart that has different items at different shipping prices AND a variety of methods (more than just 3, which by the way actually is weird in the way it works anyway because it adds the default shipping TO the shipping options!)

And it seems that if, in the product itself, I click to NOT go by the default options, all I have is ONE option for postage price! Oy vey!

Am I just being incredibly dense, or is SCC just not well thought out in the shipping department? And will this be fixed in the PRO version (for which I gather we have to pay again, lol!) ... or should I be looking at a more flexible software than SCC? (I don't mean that as a dig, I'm just incredibly frustrated with all the hours I've spent trying to make this work.)

Thanks for any positive tips! :-)

Myself and others are currently pushing for a more enhanced range of shipping options in cart creator. Only a system based on user definable weight bands for user definable destinations, is ever going to provide a suitable level of accuracy for those that ship physical goods.

It is on the list of must do's for the Coffeecup developers.

OK - all very nice, but when will we GET it??? I can't go live without it.

screencraft,

I also run an online bookstore. I know others who use the program and do as well. Although, I have got around the shipping with my own form of branding I know others who charge the flat rate as does Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com do. I know the shipping costs are based upon an algorithm that is supposed to "balance out shipping". Right now I believe that cost is 3.99 domestically (in the states). This means that although it will sometimes cost more to ship an item, more times than not it cost less; and therefore, you end up making a small profit on shipping.

I know that does not help your situation, but from a fellow bookseller, that is the philosophy behind it.

Everything you want to know about the pro version is right here

http://www.coffeecup.com/forums/shoppin … us-update/