How do you get Canada Post shipping on a single item that ships in two boxes?

[ChrisPowerPlay]

I have products that cannot be economically shipped in a single box as total weight exceeds 30kg, so they are shipped in two boxes.  The sizes and shapes of the boxes are different and the two boxes are defined in my settings:

Box 1 - long and 15kg

Box 2 - square and 20kg

The shipping costs for each box individually is different (as expected), but I cannot set up the order page for for one item in two boxes such that the Canada Post plugin calculates the shipping on them.  I have tried a few shipping Apps with no luck and have been in touch with a Shopify guru who noted that this requires a workaround, either requiring a coding edit or having a customer add a box manually to get accurate shipping charges. 

I've been able to approximate what the total shipping charge would be by adding a factor on a single box, but then I can't print the required two shipping labels neatly through the app.

Since my packaging for this product is well defined, does anyone have a method for having a customer buy one item, shipped in two boxes, that will work seamlessly for me and the customer?

Thanks!

[Dirk]

Hey there, @ChrisPowerPlay 

At this time, this feature is not natively built into the Shopify platform. With that said, you do have 2 options in order to get 2 labels for one product:

1. Purchase the labels outside of Shopify. Once you buy the label, paste the tracking info into the order
2. Create a draft order to print the second label.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

[ChrisPowerPlay]

Thanks Dirk,

For 1 - If I go with option 1, how can I take advantage of Shopify's discounted shipping rates (Canada Post)?

For 2 - If I do that, the customer would then only see half the shipping cost on-line, and I'm doing the draft order just to get the 2nd shipping label.  Not ideal.

I suppose I could also show no shipping, and get back to them with the actual shipping charge, but to get the discounted shipping rates, I have to manually verify shipping costs for each box to obtain the Shopify discounted rates. 

Am I generally correct, and if so, any other ideas to make this easier?

Chris