Product Vendors for WooCommerce

‘Clients should be charged one rate per vendor instead of one rate per product.

The current Per Product Shipping method works as so :
– Each vendor sets a shipping fee for each of its products
– In the cart, the shipping fee for each of the products adds up and is paid by the client
– But if the client buys several products from the same vendor, chances are the later will send everything in the same box, so he will pay less shipping than what the client paid for, which can be inconvenient and expensive for the customers

Instead, I propose that for each vendor, the cart takes the highest shipping fee of the vendor’s products present in the cart, and only charge these rates instead of all rates. Let me explain through an example.

Example :
A client buys 5 products (A,B,C,D,E) from 2 vendors (Vendor 1 sells A,B,C and Vendor 2 sells D,E). A shipping fee is $3, B shipping fee is $7, C shipping fee is $5, D shipping fee is $6, E shipping fee is $4.
The client pays 3+5+7+6+4 = $25 as shipping fee, Vendor 1 gets 3+5+7 = $15 and Vendor 2 gets 6+4 = $10.
The issue is most vendors will group their products into the same box, and it will cost less than what the customer paid for. So the client pays a large shipping fee, that does not correspond to the actual shipping price since each vendor will group its products into the same box.

What I propose instead (with the same example) :
– The highest rate of Vendor 1’s products is for product B (7$) and the highest rate of Vendor 2’s products is for product D ($6).
– Instead of adding up shipping fees, the cart just takes the highest shipping fee of each vendor’s products present in the cart, and just charges these highest rates
– So the client only pays 7+6 = $13 instead of $25 of shipping, Vendor 1 gets $7, Vendor 2 gets $6, and both vendors will group the ordered products into the single box. The client pays much less but the vendors still have enough money to cover (most of) the shipping cost.

I think it is smarter to charge Per Vendor shipping (taking the highest rate of the cart for each) than Per Product shipping since most products can be grouped into the same packages.