Shipping methods using Warehouses

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.4.0
-- Joomla version -- : 3.9.22

Hello,
At the moment my products are split into two categories. One of the categories only has free delivery (restricted to several postcodes), whilst the other category is associated to 4 shipping methods. Can you please tell me:

1) I've associated the different shipping methods to each category by: creating two warehouses and associating the shipping methods and products to the appropriate warehouse. Was this the correct way splitting the shipping methods to different products?

2) The category which only has one shipping method: local delivery for several postcodes - this works as expected. It's only shown when a product in that category has a shipping address matching the postcode. However, there's a problem. When the customer enters the checkout, they are first greeted by a red error message "No shipping method found". This is ugly and suggests to the customer something has gone wrong. So I don't want this behavior.

I could create a default shipping method for this category, with the text "Can only deliver to postcodes : XXX" when the postcodes do not match XXX. So this is initially shown to avoid the ugly errors. However, I need to stop the customer from placing an order with this shipping method. I want to use it as a placeholder. Is there any way to achieve this? Or is there another approach I could take?

Many thanks
Marcus

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Hello Marcus,

1. Yes that's a good solution.

2. Regarding the "No shipping method found" error message, it's probably displayed because your shipping method needs a shipping address to be displayed, so a logged in user.
The solution will be to have the login and shipping in different steps through your checkout workflow via "Hikashop->System->Configuration->Checkout"

Kind regards,
Mohamed.

Hello Mohamed,

Unfortunately, the shop ower requires a Guest checkout. For just this category of products, the shop owner only wants to provide local delivery (to a handful of postcodes.) However, I'm trying avoid the scary / ugly error in red. The shop also automatically scrolls to the error when the customer enters the checkout - which adds to the confusion, as the customer is scrolled away from the contact details they need to enter.

What would be the best solution?

Many thanks
Marcus

Hello Marcus,

A logged in user will be no different than a guest user, as long they both have a shipping address set. So can you make sure that the login/address and shipping are in different steps through your checkout workflow via "Hikashop->System->Configuration->Checkout" ?

Thank you.

Apologies Mohamed, still learning HikaShop - didn't realise the guest checkout process could also be stepped. I've created a couple of steps to separate the address entry and shipping method and that works.

However if the customer's address doesn't match the three post codes associated to the single shipping method, on the shipping screen the customer will see "No shipping method found". So I've simply overridden the NO_SHIPPING_METHOD_FOUND to be "Sorry, can only be delivered locally to XXXX" ... and they cannot progress any further. I think this looks a little friendlier.

Thanks for your help,