It's common for stores to base the amount they charge for shipping on the quantity of items the customer is ordering. For the following example, let's suppose you operate a store where you would like to charge a base of $5.00 handling for every order. In addition to that, you'd like to charge $1.50 for each of the first three items to be shipped, plus $0.50 for every item after the third. This sort of policy corresponds to a "Cumulative Quantity Table" shipping method type.
Example 6.2. Charging Shipping Based on the Quantity of Items in the Order
- Navigate to the
Shipping Configuration -> Shipping Methodsscreen. - Click "Add New Record" to add the shipping method.
- Use "Standard" for the name of the method, "STD" for the code.
Leave Minimum Charge at 0, but change Base Charge to 5.00. This corresponds to the amount of handling charges you want applied to every order.
![[Note]](images/note.png)
Note Leave dollar signs or other currency symbols off when entering price values.
- Under Method Type, select "Cumulative Quantity Table".
- Click "Add New Record" to add the new method to the store.
- Navigate back to the
Shipping Configuration -> Shipping Methodsscreen. - You should see your new method listed in the table at the center of the screen.
- Click the "Rates" link next to the new method to add the two levels of quantities you need.
- Click "Add New Record" from the "Rates" screen to add the first quantity range.
Use 0 for the floor of the first range, 3 as the ceiling, and use 1.50 for the amount of this first quantity range.
This tells the store to use this rate if the number of items in the user's cart is greater or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 3.
- Click "Add New Record" to add the first rate to the shipping method.
Now enter the next range in the quantity-based shipping table. Use 4 for the floor of the second range, 0 as the ceiling, and 0.50 as the amount.
This tells the store to use this rate if the number of items in the user's cart is greater or equal to 4, up to infinity (0 as the ceiling means no upper limit).
![[Important]](images/important.png)
Important Ranges for the Cumulative Quantity Table must not overlap. In other words, make sure the floor for one range is larger than the ceiling for the previous range. Otherwise, the amounts from both ranges will be applied when computing a customer's shipping cost.
- Click "Add New Record" to add the second rate to the shipping method.
As an example of how this works, if a user has 5 items in his or her cart, the store will compute the shipping costs for this method to be 5.00 (from the Base Charge for the method), plus 1.50 for the first item, plus 1.50 for the second item, and plus another 1.50 for the third. At this point the second range will kick in, and the store will add 0.50 for the fourth item and another 0.50 for the fifth. The total shipping cost presented to the customer is 10.50.
Sometimes it's simpler and more convenient to set a static rate for each quantity range, rather than having the costs accumluate for each item as they do in this example. This is done by selecting the regular "Quantity Table" for the Method Type of the shipping method instead of "Cumulative Quantity Table". In that case, the number you enter for the "Amount" of each quantity range is the flat amount that will be charged if the user's order falls within that range (plus the Base Charge), rather than the price per item.
| Important |
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No shipping methods will show up during checkout to users unless you have switched the
"Is a Shipping Selection Required?" setting from no to yes on the |