Flexibility in shipping option choices

This was touched on in an earlier post, but in a list of other things the poster wanted to see added..... I thought I'd break out into its own topic.

We would LOVE to see the ability to choose which shipping options will display, based on things like the customer's location, the package weight, or even the item(s) ordered.

EXAMPLE 1 -- we use the Postal Service ONLY for non-US orders, and for orders to Alaska and Hawaii.  Right now, USPS rates display for international orders, but I'd love to have Priority rates displayed to Alaska and Hawaii customers only (not to anyone else in the other 48 states).

EXAMPLE 2 -- we try to use UPS as much as we possibly can (to increase those incentive discounts!), but they're not competitive on very lightweight orders (generally, anything under 2 pounds).  It would be nice to be able to offer Priority Mail as an option only on those lighter boxes.

EXAMPLE 3 -- As the other poster discussed (in their case, regarding Media Mail) .... companies might wish to offer certain classes of service only on selected items.  For example, we cannot ship certain products overseas, or next-day or two-day air, due to flammability issues when shipped by air.  It would be nice for orders with those products, to be able to ask that the cart only display ground shipping options (and perhaps display a user-customizeable message explaining that the orders containing {xyz product} cannot ship by air). 

Drugstore.com does this -- when you order anything in an aerosol can, they explain that you cannot ship {xyz product} by air, displaying the ground shipping options available and giving the option to delete the product from the order if the customer really does need air shipping.

Not complaining, mind you -- we love our ProductCart -- but always looking for ways to serve our customers better.  :)

Brenda Sievers, Oak Court Creations

www.oakcourtcreations.com

I would also like to add to this. It would be good to be able to offer a shipping option on a per product basis. 

+1

Being able to configure shipping options on a per product or per product category would be extremely helpful.

For example we have some products that must be shipped 2nd day air or faster while other products can go slower methods like ground.  We'd like to be able to use realtime rates for all of these products and simply enforce the shipping options on a per product or per product category basis.

When it comes to shipping the more options the better...

Hey guys, I'm new here. This is my first post, but I lurk frequently. I run a site that started with V2.76 and have upgraded to 3.1. I feel shipping is the definitely the "Achilles' Heel" of the software. All of the above selections would be major improvements. Another suggestion I would love to see would be the ability to add a "handling charge" on a per item basis. This alone, would clear up many of our issues. We sell musical instruments and accessories. To be competitive, most items over $95 ship free, but the larger items usually require some sort of over-size charge. We are making it work with the current system, but it's far from perfect. With the ability to add handling (or some charge) on the item-entry level, we could use an automatically applied discount coupon for free ground shipping (or any other shipping tier) on smaller items and show a handling fee for larger items.

I would love to see this option as well.  I've added a custom shipping option that offers local pick up for free.  The problem is that I also have some items that drop-ship so we end up paying for the shipping when they choose this option.