[ic] No items in 'shipping mode' dropdown, 'Nothing to ship'

[interchange-users@icdevgroup.org (Michael Goldfarb)]

>Hello group,
>
>The subject line pretty much states my problem, the checkout
>page doesn't show any choices in the 'shipping mode' drop down
>box and it claims 'nothing to ship' even though there are items
>in the cart. I've searched the archives but haven't found a 
>solution yet, but So far it looks like the cause is that the 
>items do not have their weight registered, how can I work around 
>this? I prefer not to need to update >5000 products.
>
>Regards,
>
>Marc Brevoort

How are you intending your shipping to function? By weight, price,
number of items, etc.???