Calculating shipping before a sale is like predicting the future, and they expect us to figure it out just like they expect us to calculate to the exact cent we owe in taxes when they could just tell us.
Sorry to say, but it's meant to be this nebulous to prevent competition against the big boy corporations who have this all down to a science, because they are responsible for designing this system to begin with -- solely to benefit them alone.
I wish you luck on your endeavors. Typically most people find tacking on a flat rate base to cover potential shipping in the price of the item is what you're left having to resort to. Specifically, you have to tack on about 5 dollars or some percent mark-up to everything listed on your site to cover the obscure shipping and tax you eventually find out you owe after the fact.
Ultimately, the cost has to be transferred to the customer, one way or another.
You just gotta get inventive on how you're gonna hide those costs or at the very least offer something to your customers to make them think they're getting their money's worth. Things like adding some tat into the order -- "buy this and get a doodad thingy free!" It's not free, though. It's just a cheap thing you add in to make them feel that extra $5, compared to the big corporation's offering, that you had to mark up your item in order to cover the tax and shipping nonsense isn't without some return on the value.
Hope that helps, or at the very least gives you some options to dance around a rigged, exploitative system.
Calculating shipping before a sale is like predicting the future, and they expect us to figure it out just like they expect us to calculate to the exact cent we owe in taxes when they could just tell us.
Sorry to say, but it's meant to be this nebulous to prevent competition against the big boy corporations who have this all down to a science, because they are responsible for designing this system to begin with -- solely to benefit them alone.
I wish you luck on your endeavors. Typically most people find tacking on a flat rate base to cover potential shipping in the price of the item is what you're left having to resort to. Specifically, you have to tack on about 5 dollars or some percent mark-up to everything listed on your site to cover the obscure shipping and tax you eventually find out you owe after the fact.
Ultimately, the cost has to be transferred to the customer, one way or another.
You just gotta get inventive on how you're gonna hide those costs or at the very least offer something to your customers to make them think they're getting their money's worth. Things like adding some tat into the order -- "buy this and get a doodad thingy free!" It's not free, though. It's just a cheap thing you add in to make them feel that extra $5, compared to the big corporation's offering, that you had to mark up your item in order to cover the tax and shipping nonsense isn't without some return on the value.
Hope that helps, or at the very least gives you some options to dance around a rigged, exploitative system.