If you look at many large online stores you will see weight based shipping one of the most common methods of charging freight.

OpenCart and OMINS support this and we recommend it as the preferred shipping method.

We understand some clients find it difficult to provide exact weights of all of their items and that true weight does not always reflect the shipping cost of an item (due to bulky items). Because of this we recommend you use arbitrary weight values to represent the cost of shipping a particular item.

Within OpenCart you can configure ‘Geo Zones’ to define areas with different shipping rates, the simplest method is to specify ‘New Zealand’ as the only available option. A more advanced option is to create a North Island, South Island, and Local Geo Zone as shipping rates can then be customised to better represent actual costs inured. Duplicate North/South Geo Zones can also be created for Rural delivery.

We recommend reading opencarts “geozones for dummies” blog entry to help understand this important aspect:
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=feature/blog/info&blog_id=1

Then rates can be added. Enter as “Weight:Cost, Weight:Cost,” etc. For example, if you want to charge $10 for 0-5 and $12 for 5-7 , then enter: 5:10.00, 7:12.00

Note that the prices entered into admin are GST exclusive, but GST will be added to the price and charged accordingly on checkout.

Shipping will appear as follows during the checkout process:

Defining product weight 

Product Weight is defined on the ‘General’ settings page for the product within OMINS

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