Calculating shipping rates with a wide variety of boxes

[DannyRusso]

Hello,

 I have recently started selling products on our Shopify and  have noticed that you  cannot assign each individual product to a particular box. Our products come in boxes already and each one is different (we primarily sell, furniture, décor, and other interior design related goods). We only carry about 4 of each SKU and might not be ordering the same products from our vendors or when we go to market. I would like to be able to charge accurate shipping rates based on the dimensional weight of each product, but since each product comes in a box already and each box is a different dimensional weight I am worried about losing money on shipping costs if Shopify doesn't calculate it correctly. The only solution I can think of is to incorporate the cost of shipping into the item's base cost and giving "free shipping" but the only downside is we would have to purchase the shipping labels through USPS or UPS and would be unable to take advantage of Shopify's discounted shipping rates. We are also concerned that Shopify would group our products together in one box when almost everything should be in its own box since some of our products are very fragile, already boxed, heavy, and contain glass. Any suggestions on how to solve this problem or an APP that would accommodate this specific need would be wonderful!

Thanks!

[Ron-Anderson · Accepted solution]

Hi @DannyRusso,

This is a common concern. Unfortunately, there currently isn't a way to manage this on Shopify directly, as you can't set custom packages.

If you're open to using a third-party solution, Intuitive Shipping lets you set up both standard packages and custom packages by product, so anything with a custom package is packaged separately in the order. You can learn more about this here (see the 'Physical Attributes' section).

With Intuitive Shipping, you can connect to USPS and UPS to continue to provide live rates to customers. While we're not able to access Shopify's discounted rates at checkout, you can still use Shopify for fulfillment to get their discounts, simulate the discount in Intuitive Shipping by applying a comparable discount in the 'cost adjustment' section of the shipping method. For example, if you get a 60% discount on a UPS rate at fulfillment, you can apply that same percentage as a discount in the app so it matches (or is very close) at checkout.

If you'd like to learn more about this, feel free to book a demo with one of our team members  who would be happy to walk you through setting up custom packaging and discounted rates.

Please note that to use Intuitive Shipping - or any third-party rate calculation app - Shopify requires that you enable their third-party carrier-calculated shipping rates feature. This feature is $20 USD per month. If you change your Shopify billing to annual, they will add the feature at no additional cost (plus they will reduce your billing plan by 10%). If you're on the Advanced plan or higher, this feature is already included and activated by default.

Best regards,

Ron

[Ron-Anderson · Accepted solution]

Hi @DannyRusso,

This is a common concern. Unfortunately, there currently isn't a way to manage this on Shopify directly, as you can't set custom packages.

If you're open to using a third-party solution, Intuitive Shipping lets you set up both standard packages and custom packages by product, so anything with a custom package is packaged separately in the order. You can learn more about this here (see the 'Physical Attributes' section).

With Intuitive Shipping, you can connect to USPS and UPS to continue to provide live rates to customers. While we're not able to access Shopify's discounted rates at checkout, you can still use Shopify for fulfillment to get their discounts, simulate the discount in Intuitive Shipping by applying a comparable discount in the 'cost adjustment' section of the shipping method. For example, if you get a 60% discount on a UPS rate at fulfillment, you can apply that same percentage as a discount in the app so it matches (or is very close) at checkout.

If you'd like to learn more about this, feel free to book a demo with one of our team members  who would be happy to walk you through setting up custom packaging and discounted rates.

Please note that to use Intuitive Shipping - or any third-party rate calculation app - Shopify requires that you enable their third-party carrier-calculated shipping rates feature. This feature is $20 USD per month. If you change your Shopify billing to annual, they will add the feature at no additional cost (plus they will reduce your billing plan by 10%). If you're on the Advanced plan or higher, this feature is already included and activated by default.

Best regards,

Ron

[PluginHive · Accepted solution]

Hi @DannyRusso,

As Ron has mentioned here, this is a limitation with Shopify and there is no way to directly handle this within Shopify. Along with the app Ron has mentioned, you can also look into the Multi Carrier Shipping Label app that helps you handle this easily.  With the box packing method in the app, you can set up different packages for your products based on the weight & dimensions.

So, whenever your customer places an order, the app automatically chooses the right box and calculates the rates accordingly. Also, with the app, you can print labels, and also automate the tracking process.