[cgiapp] [OT] Shopping carts and shipping costs

[Ron Savage]

Hi Folks

I'm working with a charity which houses rescued animals, and they have a
problem with their shopping cart. Items are T-shirts, caps, etc.

Their order page is: http://edgarsmission.org.au/Merchandise.htm

Their merchandise page talks to https://www.paymate.com/cart/cart.html
for each item selected.

By default, their web hosting company supports installation of these
carts: OS Commerce Shopping Cart, CubeCart, Open Cart.

The problem is they started by specifying a shipping cost per item, but
of course various items can be jammed into a single package.

Does anyone have ideas about accumulating user selections (including
item dimensions and weights), so as to determine a more-or-less optimum
package size to contain a given set of items.

What I'm thinking of is either:

o Switch to a different shopping cart package, which handles this, but I
haven't found one yet.

o Intercept the submits, and maintain my own cart, determine the
shipping cost each time an item is added/deleted, and upon confirmation
by the user, submit to paymate.

Ideas?
-- 
Ron Savage
http://savage.net.au/
Ph: 0421 920 622