"Ships by itself" is ignored?

[redonion]

Hi there. I have a few items (Spice Kits) that need to ship by themselves, so I selected "Ships by itself" in the product's shipping options. I then added one spice kit and several other items in my cart - then went to checkout, and it just ignored that the kit shipped by itself.

I was assuming it would look at the weight and offer shipping options 1st for the kit, and then offer shipping items for the other items - but I'm guessing I have to pick a flat shipping rate and add it to the product's shipping options?
(Does this make sense?) Of course a flat rate doesn't really work as it's only about $5 for zones 1,2,3 and close to 10 for 4,5,6,7,8 USPS.

I think I answered my own question - you can't calculate shipping for an items that 'ships by itself'...correct?

[MainEvent]

Red Onion:

We got confused when we were first trying to figure out how to set up different shipping scenarios. Here is what we have deciphered (and appears to hold true):

"Ships by itself" just means that it will add on another box for that product, coming out of your default ship location. So it's really used for items that don't pack well, or maybe come prepackaged and you just want to slap a label on and not try to open the carton.

When you have an item coming from a second warehouse (or dropshipper), the better approach is to set up a distributor profile within 3dCart (with address details) and attach that to the product. That forces the system to calculate the shipping from that location independently. There is no reason that you couldn't use a made-up distributor (or two) for your own warehouse location if you need to, either.

What we have struggled with is how many items fit in a carton. For example, we might have a product where we can pack up to three in a box, but the fourth item pushes us to a second box. Right now we just take the philosophy that if we get a bigger order, we eat the excess freight.

[redonion]

Worked Perfectly!

Oh thank you so much! I could not figure out how to do that!
I just added myself as a distributor drop shipper, then assigned that distributor to the product, then checked off 'ships by itself' and voila! Shipping rates are now perfect! Thank you thank you! ~ kathy

[gmcp]

We sell auto parts that are packaged in 4x4x4 boxes to the max allowed by USPS and UPS. To get the correct shipping calculations for larger packages you MUST select "ships by itself" to include the packaging size in the carts shipping calculations.

[redonion]

bad grammar

Yes - bad grammar. By "checked off" I meant I checked the box! Thank you.