FREE SHIPPING with Configurable Parameters...

[ITPDiesel]

I've seen several discussions on here about the need for some FREE SHIPPING functionality. I know I'm not the only one that really needs this type of thing. With the economy and markets the way they are, consumers are looking for every single discount. I'm seeing many many websites doing things like:

Free GROUND Shipping (all orders - contig 48 states only)
Free GROUND Shipping (orders over $x - contig 48 states only)
Free OVERNIGHT Shipping (certain products - contig 48 states only)
Free OVERNIGHT Shipping (certain products - ALL US States)

Right now, I have to put a notice on any product we want to do free shipping on that says that we will refund the shipping when processing the order. This is because I only offer the free shipping as GROUND and to the Contiguous 48 States. If I were to set the cart up to allow free shipping on the product, I'd get orders for big heavy stuff expecting free shipping to Hawaii and Alaska. We REALLY need the ability to setup some very specific "free shipping" options (either through rules or on a product by product basis). Even something as simple as the following:

Put a checkbox on the individual shipping method like UPS ground that says "Allow Free Shipping Selection". Checking this box would enable this method and place a checkbox on the product control panel pages that says "Enable Free Ground Shipping". Any individual product with "Enable Free Ground Shipping" would then display $0.00 as the ground freight cost on the shipping method selection screen, the remainder of the shipping methods (3 day, 2 day, next day, etc) would have their regular RTR rates like normal.

There could be further checkboxes for "Enable for Contiguous 48 Only" or "Enable for All US" or something like that.

I think this is important enough to warrant serious consideration. These types of marketing strategies are very prevalent and there is no easy way to do this in SC right now. I hope that any other members that feel the same way will join me in encouraging the SC staff to please please put this at the top of the new feature requests...

[dave01978]

all of that is doable with rules right now, you just need to create shipping rules, and if you want the other choices to show, make sure they are the same priority as your regular shipping rules.

for excluding us you can use country is equal to us, state is not alaska, Hawaii
For the over certain amount grand total is greater then amount, (or you can do greater then or equal to)

if you need to I can take a screen shot of how to do it.

I think there is an option for items as well, if not it could be tricky with other methods being able to show, if you dont need the others, just edit the item, and choose ship as seperate package, and price = 0.00

Dave

[Jamie]

Free GROUND Shipping (all orders - contig 48 states only)
Free GROUND Shipping (orders over $x - contig 48 states only)

Dave is correct. Both of these are very possible.
example2.png
example1.png

Free OVERNIGHT Shipping (certain products - contig 48 states only)
Free OVERNIGHT Shipping (certain products - ALL US States)

This is not possible yet, because you can't control shipping for individual products with shipping rules.

[ITPDiesel]

This is not possible yet, because you can't control shipping for individual products with shipping rules.

Herein lies my biggest issue. I don't currently do free shipping over a certain $ amount (I was just using that as an example). I do however offer free shipping (ups ground only, lower 48 only) on a certain subset of products. Right now, I have to charge the customer for the shipping while they are in the cart, and then when we process the order, if it is going to the lower 48 and they picked ground, we manually refund the shipping for that product. This is very confusing for customers and a hassle for us.

It boils down to specific products having pricing rules that we can't violate, so we offer shipping for free to give incentive to purchase from us (very common in my industry). In some cases we offer ground for free. In others we might offer overnight for free. Not being able to manage shipping per product is a real challenge, and the biggest issue I have with SC right now. Maybe this issue is really a minority thing and nobody else cares...if that's the case I would invite Jamie to send me a quote for implementing it "custom" for us (provided we will still be able to upgrade as new releases of SC come out). Even a rough estimate would be appreciated, it can be sent to the email address in my profile.

[Jamie]

We have every intention of supporting this in the future. It is an enormous undertaking, requires an almost complete rewrite of our shipping functions, and is not something that is going to be possible as a one off custom job.

[ITPDiesel]

[begging on hands and knees = on]

[rhagberg]

I agree with ITPDiesel -- being able to offer free shipping for certain products would be a very useful marketing tool. It is almost a must in today's sales environment. Shipping cost gets a lot of customer attention these days.

Thanks,

Rick

[dave01978]

I agree with ITPDiesel -- being able to offer free shipping for certain products would be a very useful marketing tool. It is almost a must in today's sales environment. Shipping cost gets a lot of customer attention these days.

Thanks,

Rick

If you are just looking to offer free shipping without another method you can click ship as seperate package, and choose a choice of 0.00 for the shipping charge

[Jamie]

I agree with ITPDiesel as well. We will be revamping our shipping features in the future to handle this type of thing. It will be a major undertaking, and won't be happening very soon but will certainly be happening.

Rick's recommendation works fine as well, if you don't need to control when a particular item ships for free.