Flat Rate Domestic Shipping Issues

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4 years 8 months ago #308195

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.1.0
-- Joomla version -- : 3.9.8
-- PHP version -- : 7.3
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome

Mohamed, or anyone else that can help with this...

I've been asked for a while, and I really want to do this...setup Flat Rate Mailing Boxes for the USPS. I followed this thread:

www.hikashop.com/forum/shipping-methods/...rity-boxes-only.html

In getting them setup, but I'm having the following issues:

If I use the Product Dimensions, I know I can fit 5 of a certain line of items into a Small Flat Rate Box...but when adding them to the cart, the Small Flat Rate Box disappears after I add 2 of the item to my cart. I checked the measurements, and they are all correct. So I don't know what is going on here.

So I tried setting minimum as well as maximum items for the box, and that did not resolve the issue either.

If I do NOT use the Product Dimensions, then other products that are WAY bigger than the box show up in the cart with the option to ship using the Small Flat Rate Box.

So in looking more & more...I am hoping there is a way to specify using Small Flat Rate on specific products or categories. Any help would be appreciated.

I also have this setup on a test site & am willing to send over login info if needed to any of the HikaShop team.

Thank you!

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4 years 8 months ago #308214

Hello,

I also have this setup on a test site & am willing to send over login info if needed to any of the HikaShop team.


Of course, it will help us understand and find out from where it's coming. Thank you!

Kind regards,
Mohamed Thelji.

Last edit: 4 years 8 months ago by Mohamed Thelji.

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4 years 8 months ago #308242

Mohamed Thelji wrote: Hello,

I also have this setup on a test site & am willing to send over login info if needed to any of the HikaShop team.


Of course, it will help us understand and find out from where it's coming. Thank you!

Kind regards,
Mohamed Thelji.


Info sent! Thank you

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4 years 8 months ago #308252

Hi,

As I'm not familiar with inches (never used and don't understand what is 5-3/8, etc), I've converted everything to centimeters. Sorry for that but I want to be accurate and not make mistakes.

On this page ( store.usps.com/store/product/shipping-su...rate-box-P_SMALL_FRB ), I find that the Small Flat Rate Box size is: 5-3/8 in x 8-5/8 in x 1-5/8 in
This corresponds to a size of : 13.6 cm * 22 cm * 4.1 cm

On your test website, the product Agrotera AGT-1A has a size of: 5 * 3 * 1.25 in.
This corresponds to a size of: 12.7cm * 7.6cm * 3.2cm

To calculate the limitations on the size, we use the length + girth calculation from USPS: ( width + height ) * 2 + length.

The Small Flat Rate Box has a length girth of (13.6+4.1) * 2 + 22 = 57.4
Your product has a length girth of (7.6+3.2) * 2 + 12.7 = 34.3
As 34.3 * 2 > 57.4, once you add two items of that product in the order, it goes over the length girth of the package and thus it requires a second Small Flat Rate Box.

Now, the fact that you can pack more items in the Small Flat Rate Box than what is calculated sounds strange to you but packing is a complex matter:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_packing_problem
The solution we use is a simple, crude, one which roughly works but could definitely be optimized to reduce the calculated number of packages necessary for the cost estimations.

I actually looked further into it and I think it could be interesting to implement such library to calculate the packing in the future:
github.com/dvdoug/BoxPacker
In the short term however, that's not something you or we could fix by changing a few lines of code in the USPS plugin or in HikaShop's shipping system.

The following user(s) said Thank You: Dragon41673

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4 years 8 months ago #308267

Understood...thank you all for looking into this matter. I definitely appreciate it. I'm going to toy around on the test site for some time and see if there's a way to make this work for me on JUST this one line.

Thank you!

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