ProductMatrix is a complex Shipping Extension. There are a number of features which are not relevant for 99% of users. This section details some of those advanced features. We do not recommend using unless you have a definite need.

Shipping_Qty Attribute

This attribute is installed by the ProductMatrix extension. It will allow you to modify the quantity counted for a particular item when searching for matching rules. It in effects gives you a multiplier for the quantity.

An example usage is for a wine site where wine is sold by the bottle and the case. Lets say it costs $50 to ship 12 bottles. Well you can set the shipping_qty to 12 for a case of wine even though this is a single bottle.  If there is 1 case and 1 bottle in the cart it will calculate the quantity for shipping as 13, and thus match on this rule (rather than counting as quantity 2).

Product Matrix Tooltip Feature

Cart Estimator

Display a tooltip at the cart estimator next to your delivery methods giving your customers more information. To set up the tooltip, enter your message into the notes column of your CSV file:

Then navigate to the Product Matrix configuration page and select Options –> Show tooltips.

You then will need to manipulate the cart shipping.phtml and checkout available.html to show the tooltip itself.  We no longer distribute code to do this as there are too many incompatibily issues around the new 1.9 themes and earlier ones.  Here is an example of how to make it show up though:

<?php echo $_excl; ?>  <!-- this is existing in magento shipping.phtml -->
<?php if (Mage::helper('productmatrix')->showToolTips($_rate->getMethodDescription())): ?>
    <b class="helpcursor" title="<?php echo $_rate->getMethodDescription() ?>">
       <img src="<?php echo $this->getSkinUrl('images/webshopapps/productmatrix/tooltip.jpg') ?>">
    </b>
<?php endif ?>

Whats important here is $_rate->getMethodDescription() – this holds the data from the notes column.

Also the tooltip option has a limit of 255 characters. So this is useful to bare in mind when using long notes for this option.

 

UPS Zone Support in ProductMatrix

ProductMatrix has the ability for you to upload rules based on UPS Zones. When done the process for obtaining shipping rates is as follows:

1. Based on zipcode do a UPS Zone lookup
2. Match UPS Zone in ProductMatrix rates (using other rules around weight, price, qty, etc)
3. Return rates to customer

To use this feature please enable it in the Advanced Settings.

Obtain your UPS Zone Chart

Example CSV File