Need shipping solution that can select correct box size based dimensions of cart items and provide accurate shipping estimate

[Chris_Lloyd]

Our shipping solution currently only takes into account the weight of the order to get an estimate from Canada Post and as a result the actual cost is off when it comes time to ship the items.

We are selling shirts, sweaters, and onesies, etc. I have determined that we need to get a few different box sizes that we purchase and use for shipping. Currently we often reuse boxes from the suppliers. Once we have a few different box sizes that are constant then it should be easier to determine how many products we can fit into a box and have Shopify select the correct box based on cart items / quantity. This also means we will need correct dimensions for all of our products.

My question is if this is doable, and if anyone has any good app recommendations that can help accomplish this. My boss seems to think Canada Post should be able to help with this but from my experience that is not the case and this seems to be a strictly Shopify thing.

Thank you for reading this and appreciate any feedback or suggestions.

[Freddie]

Hi, Chris!

Freddie here from the Shopify Support team, happy to help.

It sounds like you could really benefit from using this app here, Boxify. It helps with the dimensional weight issue, where you need to calculate the actual box sizes of your orders being shipped out with Canada Post. This app will work for you, and it comes with a free 15-day trial for you to try it out! It has lots of excellent reviews, so look those over and try it out for yourself.

Intuitive Shipping looks to be another great app that can help you with this solution! This one comes with a 14-day free trial for you to try it out.

Otherwise, you can look into reaching out to a Shopify Expert to build you a custom solution via API to help with this.

Let me know if this is helpful, or if I can help with anything else!

Best regards,

Freddie
Shopify Support - support@shopify.com

[Anindo]

Within Box packaging there is a complete world of packaging algorithms that need to be looked at before selecting a solution. If your solution is purely using dimensions for packaging items, then there are different ways of packaging them like purely based on volume, packing the heavier items first, packing the lighter items first, etc. The best is way is to calculate the volumetric weight of each box, calculating the volumetric of each product and adding them together, then packing them inside the box. The Multi Carrier Shipping label app is one such app that does this. In addition, if you are not opting for volumetric calculation, even then you can define your own boxes and then use the Stack first algorithm to pack them one on top of another. I have attached a screenshot to show you this feature.

[kingstore]

@Chris_Lloyd you need to set up more package sizes and fine tune the weight/costs being reported back to your customers during the checkout. There are several shipping rates app (Pretty Darn Quick for instance that provides good rates based on all kinds of dimensional information. Using package sizes and weights to fine tune the pricing I'm giving the customer has worked on a site shipping heavier packages in flat rate boxes, they split up the box sizes into more increments and cost schedules. You can also use an app like SKUSavvy that will add dimensional information to your products and provide box size suggestions, note that this is only on the fulfillment side and not on the Shopify checkout side.

For multiple boxes per shipment, right now within Shopify your best bet is to split the fulfillment into two Shipments then ship those out with separate packaging. This of course isn't ideal with two separate shipping rates. In this case you can use SKUSavvy multi-box fulfillment which will enable you to add boxes and ship under one tracking number from the carriers. You can also split fulfillments across locations.