Shipping Packages

SCP offers a rich set of features to describe the packages that orders and order items are shipped in. These features will help you retrieve accurate shipping rates for orders, and enable rich integrations.

Shipments and Shipping Packages

As each order is placed, a routine in the system divides it up into shipments and shipping packages, for use when it retrieves rates and makes other API calls to the various shipping processors such as UPS, USPS, and FedEx.

If drop shipping is being used, the system may create multiple shipments, representing the different sets of items that are being shipped by different suppliers. For more information, visit the Drop Shipping document. Typically however, one shipment is created for each order.

To view the Shipments under each order, click the Shipments link under the order's three-dots menu:

Next, it determines the weight, and optionally the dimensions, for each package that the items will be placed in under each shipment. To view the packages under each shipment, click the Shipping Packages link under the shipment's three-dots menu:

You can also search for and manage shipping packages across the whole system by going to Inventory and Shipping -> Shipping -> Shipping Packages in the admin side menu:

You have a few different strategies available to help the system decide how to create shipping packages.

Basic Strategy: Product, Attribute, and Option Weights and Dimensions

To start out with, you can define a weight, length, width, and height for each product in the system, as well as each attribute and option under the product. This can be a simple way to describe the size of shipping packages under each order.

If there are no other configurations present, the weight all the products, attributes, and options are added up and stored with each cart item. The total weight for the shipment as a whole is then summed up and used whenever an integration request is made to one of the shipping processors.

As for dimensions, first of all, the length, width, and height of each product, attribute, and option do not have to be defined. If they are not, then dimensions are simply not sent to the shipping processors. Each of the shipping processors is still able to provide rates based on the weight alone.

For more accurate rates however, you can define the length, width, and height of each product, attribute, and option. The system will "stack" all the items in the shipment in order to determine the length, width, and height of the whole shipment. The stacking algorithm uses the maximum length and width among all the products, attributes, and options. It then adds up all the heights. This simulates a real-world scenario where items are stacked, one on top of each other, when packaging them to be shipped.

More Advanced Strategy: Product Variant Weights and Dimensions

In addition to specifying product, attribute, and option weights and dimensions, it's also possible to define them for product variants.

Product variants simply represent a specific combination of attributes and options under a product. They are used in other features such as discounting and inventory tracking.

If the weight or dimensions are defined for a matching product variant, they are used in place of the product, attribute, and option weights and dimensions. In other words, if you create a product variant record that has its weight and/or length, width, and height fields defined, the variant's fields will override the product's, attribute's, and option's fields when a given cart item matches the variant.

The idea is, the variant is being used to represent that specific combination of attributes and options. Its information is more specific and therefore should override the product, attribute, and option information.

Note: if more than one product variant with weights or dimensions defined matches a given cart item, only the first one that is found by the system is used to compute the weight or dimensions of the item.

Most Advanced Strategy: Package Definitions

The most advanced way to help the system divide up an order into packages, is to leverage package definitions. If a package definition is associated with a product or product variant in an order, and the quantity being ordered matches the package definition's quantities, its fields will override any other weights or dimensions defined in the products, attributes, options, or product variants themselves.

Simply put, the package definition describes the weight, and optionally the length, width, and height of a package used to ship your products. In addition, it defines a "quantity floor" and "quantity ceiling". These quantity fields represent how many of the products or product variants can fit in the package.

In many cases the "quantity floor" and "quantity ceiling" fields will be the same, for example "12". In this case it means the package must contain exactly 12 of the product or product variant. If an order comes in for, say, 25 of the product, the system will create two packages from the package definition.

In this example, there will be one "left over". At the end of the processing algorithm, one more shipping package is created for all the left overs. Note: for this left over package, the product, attribute, option, or product variant weights and dimensions are used.

In other cases, the "quantity floor" and "quantity ceiling" will specify a range, like 6-12. This means that the package will be used if there are between 6 and 12 of the matching products and variants in the shipment. For example, if there are 8 being ordered, the algorithm will create one package for all of them.

Note: if the "quantity floor" and "quantity ceiling" specify a range, as in the above example, the system will never create more than one shipping package based on it. In other words, if 18 are being ordered, the system will NOT create two packages (one with 12 and one with 6). When the floor and ceiling specify a range, the package definition is ignored if the item quantity does not fall within the range. It is up to you to create multiple package definitions with different ranges, to cover all the realistic possibilities for the quantity that is ordered.

Multiple Package Definitions For a Single Product Or Variant

It is possible to associate multiple packages definitions for a single product or product variant. If more than one definition matches a single cart item, the system generates multiple shipping packages for it.

A real-world example of the usefulness of this feature is a company that sells large, bulky items that come in multiple boxes when they are shipped. For example, furniture or machinery that comes in multiple boxes. A customer might only order one, but it requires multiple boxes or packages to ship it.

By creating a package definition for each of the boxes that a single one of the item ships in, and associating all the package definitions with the product or variant, you can enable the system to accurately reflect the fact that multiple packages are required when shipping even one of the item. Simply create a package definition including the weight and optionally the dimensions for each of the boxes. Use 1 for the "quantity floor" and "quantity ceiling". Then assign all of the package definitions to the product or variant.

Additional Package Definition Fields

There are a few other fields you can define for each package definition, which are optional.

• Packaging Type: Represents the type of package that is used. For the UPS and other shipping integrations the value of this field is passed along to their API when retrieving shipping rates.

• Is Oversized: Flag that indicates this package is oversized which makes it more expensive to ship. If defined, this value is passed along to the UPS and other shipping processors' APIs.

• Is Additional Handling Required: Another flag that may be passed to shipping processors when retrieving rates.

• Send Dimensions To Shipping Processors: When the package definition has this flag set to false, no dimensions will be sent to the shipping processors when retrieving rates, even if they are defined by the package definition.

Package Definitions in the Administrator Interface

To create package definitions and assign them to products and product variants, visit the links under Inventory and Shipping -> Package Definitions: