Assigning a package to a specific product?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Users are requesting the ability to assign specific packaging (boxes vs. bubble mailers) to individual products to accurately calculate shipping costs. This is particularly important for stores with items requiring different packaging types—fragile items needing boxes versus non-fragile items using mailers.

Current Limitations:

  • Shopify lacks native functionality to assign default packaging per product or shipping profile
  • The platform uses a single default package for checkout rate calculations based on historical selections rather than product dimensions
  • Users report significant cost discrepancies when customers can order quantities exceeding default package capacity but only pay for one package

Proposed Workarounds:

  • Use product tags (“Box” or “Bubble Mailer”) combined with shipping rules
  • Manipulate product weights to reflect packaging requirements
  • Install third-party apps like Boxify, Better Shipping, Advanced Shipping Rules, or Starshipit
  • Create multiple shipping profiles with zone-specific rates

Community Frustration:

  • Multiple users note this feature exists on eBay (20+ years), Etsy, and WooCommerce as standard functionality
  • Implementing workarounds often requires upgrading Shopify plans (approximately $1,200/year additional) plus app subscriptions ($120-1,200/year)
  • Some users considering migrating to other platforms due to these limitations and cumulative costs

Status: The discussion remains unresolved with no official Shopify response regarding native feature development. One account representative allegedly claimed the feature exists, but users cannot locate it.

Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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Hey Shopify, can you PLEASE work on adding this simple option of letting us assign a certain package to a product, or even a flat rate shipping if a certain product is added to the cart? We are adding sputnik sinkers to our fishing store, which are heavy (3-5 oz each) and have wire legs sticking out, which means I need to ship them in flat-rate priority mail boxes to get the best price on shipping is a customer buys several of them (which they always do). Not only do you not have the correct flat rate box form USPS as an option for me to add as a package option, I may have to instruct customers to choose a certain shipping option if they purchasing sinkers with their order. I can see us losing a lot of money, and I am currently going to start looking for a different platform that has the basic functions I need built into it.

If you haven’t added this simple option to let us assign a certain package if a particular product is ordered, then that tells me you don’t care about your customers and what we really need to be successful. I’ve been on a few of these threads and it’s been years since we have asked for this basic thing without having to pay yet another monthly fee for an app (that may or may not work the way we need it to).

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