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How dimensional - volumetric weight is calculated


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Hi all,

 

I have a problem with the shipping charges.

 

I have a product with the following dimensions:

 

10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm

 

Weight: 0,5 kg.

 

If I purchase 1 on my site, the shipping charge is ok, 6€ (or so).

But if I purchase 10 I get a shipping charge of 116€!

 

I checked all the rates and carriers and everything looks ok.

 

What the system is doing is charging the largest rate available for the zone, as if the shipment weight exceeded the maximum weight possible. But this is clearly not true.

 

Currently, I have the local settings of Spain.

That is, my products are in Kilos and Centimeters. Is it possible that I should need to put everything in METERS, instead of centimeters?

 

Strangely enough, last week I had a similar issue with a product and then, all of the sudden, shipping charges went back to normal... Without doing anything.

 

Has anybody experienced this?

 

My install is 1.473.

 

What I also would like to know is how dimensional weight is applied and how does the system tell if a shipper is for air, sea or ground, since I understand that the way dimensional weight is calculated for each way is different and could throw different equivalences.

 

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What I also would like to know is how dimensional weight is applied and how does the system tell if a shipper is for air, sea or ground, since I understand that the way dimensional weight is calculated for each way is different and could throw different equivalences.

For shipments inside Sweden DHL calculate 1 meter3 as 280 kgs even if a 1 meter3 bag of my polystyren pearls only have an actual weight of 15 kgs. If I send gods outside of the country they think it's 250 kgs.  Really makes no sense?

 

For most companies the actual weight is irrelevant because they always pay according to the calculated weight.

 

The calculated weight for a box with dimensions 10 x 10 x 10 cm = 0,1 x 0,1 x 0,1 x 280 = 0,28 kg but DHL would charge the same for a box that was bigger since they consider anything with a weight less than 0,5 kg to have the weight 0,5 kg even if the actual weight is 0,05 kg.

 

Since they have restrictions on box sizes etc I find it practically impossible to get a working calculation for shipment cost and instead I sell these products with freight and packing included in different sizes of boxes. 

This means that if the customer buy 100 liters there is a fixed price that include the price for that box, the freight and what's inside. If a customer need 200 liters they should buy ANOTHER product that use another (larger box) that use the freight cost for this box.

 

Since DHL Service Point only allow 1 box per shipment the cost for me (and the customer) is much higher if I ship 2 boxes with 100 liters compared to 1 box with 200 liters.  Freight cost for 100 liters is around 11,50 Euro and the box with 200 liters costs around 16 Euros.

 

Since the maximum volyme of a box can be 250 liters I will need to send 2 shipments if the customer needs 300 liters and this makes the freight cost per liter material higher when the customer order 300 liters instead of 250 liters.

 

Freights are really a nightmare when you sell volume products.  :(

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Thanks for your quick response, Mr. Bean_S!

 

I kind of discovered what´s wrong, although I ignore how to effectively fix it.

 

What the system is doing is charging the largest rate available for the zone, as if the shipment weight exceeded the maximum weight possible. But this is clearly not true.

 

If I buy one product with the mentioned dimensions 10x10x10 centimeters and a weight of 0.50 kg, it charges the maximum rate allowed (over 900 kilos).

 

But if I order 16 pieces of this same item, it charges the right rate...

 

It looks like a cache mem issue. However, I don´t see how a client could avoid it on the front end. That´s how we learnt about this problem. The client told us.

 

Please help!

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  • 3 years later...
 

Hello!

 

We are in the same juice... are you founded any solution in the last 3 years?

We sell stationary stuff, copy paper and tools for office.

In Hungary we must calculate with dimensions and weight too, but I can't find any module what can do it.

 

Thanks!

Laszlo

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