Shipping Calculation for several boxes

Hello,



Our store sells many products at the same time. It often required that we ship multiple boxes containing a lot of products.



How do we configured the store that it's able to compute the best boxes size and the shipping cost of those packages. I didn't find any way.



Note: We'll use Canada Post to send our parcel.

[quote name='Web' timestamp='1436802925' post='222749']

Hello,



Our store sells many products at the same time. It often required that we ship multiple boxes containing a lot of products.



How do we configured the store that it's able to compute the best boxes size and the shipping cost of those packages. I didn't find any way.



Note: We'll use Canada Post to send our parcel.

[/quote]



As I can see Canada post does not support multiple packages.

However CS-Cart cart has the feature that can share the shipping items by boxes it works with USPS, Fedex, DHL.

In the Shipping Properties tab of the product you can find the following settings:



▪ Items in a box – Minimum and maximum number of product items to be shipped in a separate box.

▪ Box length – Length of a separate box.

▪ Box width – Width of a separate box.

▪ Box height – Height of a separate box.



These options are required for a more accurate shipping cost estimation when a real-time shipping method with the support for multi-box shipping is used (UPS, FedEx and DHL.) If you do not specify box dimensions, values will be taken from the global configuration settings of a particular shipping carrier.

[quote name='imac' timestamp='1436952260' post='223005']

As I can see Canada post does not support multiple packages.

However CS-Cart cart has the feature that can share the shipping items by boxes it works with USPS, Fedex, DHL.

[/quote]



I'm not sure what you mean when you say "share the shipping items by boxes. How would I setup that ?

[quote name='eComLabs' timestamp='1436974434' post='223071']

In the Shipping Properties tab of the product you can find the following settings:



▪ Items in a box – Minimum and maximum number of product items to be shipped in a separate box.

▪ Box length – Length of a separate box.

▪ Box width – Width of a separate box.

▪ Box height – Height of a separate box.



These options are required for a more accurate shipping cost estimation when a real-time shipping method with the support for multi-box shipping is used (UPS, FedEx and DHL.) If you do not specify box dimensions, values will be taken from the global configuration settings of a particular shipping carrier.

[/quote]



As said by imac, my carrier (Canada Post) doesn`t support multiple packages, should I still set those parameters ?

Those parameters for “Items in a box” only work for multiple quantities of the SAME product. For instance: 20 pairs of the same shoes, or 50 of the same shirt. (Entirely useless in my case.)

CS-Cart doesn't break an order into multiple boxes with multiple products in the order. In order to do that, CS-Cart would have to be able to allow us to define the length, width and height of each product - it doesn't do that.

[quote name='Magpie Don' timestamp='1437250327' post='223455']

Those parameters for “Items in a box” only work for multiple quantities of the SAME product. For instance: 20 pairs of the same shoes, or 50 of the same shirt. (Entirely useless in my case.)

CS-Cart doesn't break an order into multiple boxes with multiple products in the order. In order to do that, CS-Cart would have to be able to allow us to define the length, width and height of each product - it doesn't do that.

[/quote]



So how do you handle this ? Shipping is only based on weight ?



Is it standard ?

The cart can't handle it.

CS-Cart does not support the INDUSTRY STANDARD of dimensional weight (this should be obvious because there are no dimension values for the products). While every carrier in the world has completely transitioned to dimensional weight, our shopping cart still only sends weight and destination to it's supported live carriers. This can be very costly when you are using a shipper like UPS. My 12x12x12 box might have 7 different products in it and only weight 3 pounds, but its dimensional weight at UPS or FedEx is more than double that. The result is the customer pays for a 3lb package, and (at UPS) I end up paying for a 11lb (billable rate) 12x12x12 package - which costs me $4 more than the customer paid (with negotiated rates) or $5.25 more than the customer paid (with book rates).

Some basic terminology of shipping carriers.

There are packages (unique tracking numbers) and shipments (a single tracking number, usually the first package's tracking number but can have multiple packages).



So most shipping carrier references are to shipments. This might be 1 or more packages.



Some carriers don't support shipments, but only each individual (Canada post as above).



But in cs-cart, you still enter tracking based on items that are in a package. So if you have have 3 packages and

P1 contiains items A, B and C

P2 contains items C, D (note C items overflowed into this package)

P3 contains items E



There is no way to assign a single tracking number that applies to all items and all packages in a shipment.



Additional properties relating to the carrier would have to be stored/configured to apply single tracking number to an order and still maintain the individual package tracking in case something got lost for reference to the carrier.



You'd still enter 3 tracking numbers. And the carriers can still track all 3 individually, but Fed Ex and UPS (maybe USPS) can also track all packages by a single tracking number if it is the 'shipment tracking number'.

[quote name='Magpie Don' timestamp='1437323512' post='223492']

The cart can't handle it.

CS-Cart does not support the INDUSTRY STANDARD of dimensional weight (this should be obvious because there are no dimension values for the products). While every carrier in the world has completely transitioned to dimensional weight, our shopping cart still only sends weight and destination to it's supported live carriers. This can be very costly when you are using a shipper like UPS. My 12x12x12 box might have 7 different products in it and only weight 3 pounds, but its dimensional weight at UPS or FedEx is more than double that. The result is the customer pays for a 3lb package, and (at UPS) I end up paying for a 11lb (billable rate) 12x12x12 package - which costs me $4 more than the customer paid (with negotiated rates) or $5.25 more than the customer paid (with book rates).

[/quote]



I think I'm missing something. How does dimensional weight help in the multi-box situation? I'm not understanding how knowing the dimensions of each product helps to determine how many items will actually fit in a box? What if you have multiple sizes of boxes available to choose from?



In my case, I am shipping items that are light and fairly uniform in shape. I ship them in a single sized box, and I can fit up to 8 items in a single box. It is not uncommon for a customer to order 20+ items in a single order - so that translates into 2-3 boxes for a typical order. How would dimensional weight shipping handle this situation?

[quote name='MeeHungLowe' timestamp='1439071048' post='226101']

I think I'm missing something. How does dimensional weight help in the multi-box situation? I'm not understanding how knowing the dimensions of each product helps to determine how many items will actually fit in a box? What if you have multiple sizes of boxes available to choose from?



In my case, I am shipping items that are light and fairly uniform in shape. I ship them in a single sized box, and I can fit up to 8 items in a single box. It is not uncommon for a customer to order 20+ items in a single order - so that translates into 2-3 boxes for a typical order. How would dimensional weight shipping handle this situation?

[/quote]



In order to determine if more than one box is needed, the cart needs to know the size of the product AND the box.

Example: Product is 8x6x1

Box is 8x6x4

Four products can fit in the box

Customer orders quantity of 8 = two boxes required



The first step in determining HOW MANY boxes are required is knowing the dimensions of the products. The next step is defining the size of the box that will be used for shipping those products.

You can complicate matters by defining more than one box size, so the options (in the above example) are 8x6x4 or 8x6x6 or 8x6x8, but then you don't have the original problem, because you have an 8x6x8 box for ONE shipment - which is what everyone is doing right now.



Basically, by including dimensions for the products, CS-Cart could start to build dimensional weight calculations for shipments AND use those same dimensions (along with box size definitions) to determine when more than one box is needed.

No, CS-Cart can not calculate boxes for multiple products. If you order 2 different products and have boxes calculation on, there will always be 2 boxes in CS-Cart calculation. It only works for orders with the same product. Which does not happen for us, so multi-box shipping calculation does not work for us at all.

That may be what they do, but that's not how it should be.



Magpie has a pretty good description. To be complete, max-weight per package also needs to be included and obviously the goal should be fewer packages so moving to a larger box should definitely be an option. Box restrictions should be set per product. I.e. “this product must be packed alone” or “this product cannot be mixed with other products” or "max box size is AxBxC. Default settings would govern rules that were not specified on a product by product basis.



Note too, there are some products that can be split across boxes. I.e. if someone orders 200lbs of gluten-free-soap, you should be able to specify that the product can be broken up into 2-100lb packages.



Shipping is not easy and is very product specific. But shipping has always been an issue in cs-cart but hasn't been touched really since V3.

[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1440192315' post='227566']But shipping has always been an issue in cs-cart but hasn't been touched really since V3.

[/quote]

There are various scripts that CS-Cart could take advantage of to accurately calculate shipping box size and volume weight. But that will need the dimensions of each product and variant. I do hope that CS-Cart will re-evaluate shipping because everyone needs it and it simply does not work in CS-Cart.

Plus determine DIM weight. If your products fit in a 8x6x6 and a 7x5x4, the total weight of the products needs to be taken into consideration and compared to the DIM weight of the box sizes available. If you were going to have CSC suggest a box and it says 7x5x4 but your product weighs less than the DIM weight then you pay the DIM weight. It should recommend the smallest box for the product weight that is more than the DIM weight. If that isn't possible, then at least display a warning that the DIM weight will be used. This gives the option to use two 6x4x4 boxes which is sometimes cheaper with UPS to create a shipment of 1 of 2, 2 of 2 instead of a single box.

Tricky indeed.

Both multi-box shipments and Dimensional weight was asked for in this suggestion:

http://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/134344-cs-cart/suggestions/502983-shipping-add-support-for-multi-box-shipments-and

The suggestion is marked as implemented, but multi-box shipments does not work and Dimensional Weight was never implemented.

I really hope that this is coming in a near future release like 4.4 because we really need this for shipping calculation to work.

I rekindled this issue before reading this complete thread but my thread is started two months after this last message before me, so maybe best to start it as a fresh topic anyway. Interestingly my post sort of sums of the issues discussed here.

I've done CS-Cart code customization in the past but haven't dealt with the product for several years. It IS concerning that apparently the adequate functionality has NOT been fully implemented despite all the shippers changing to dimensional rates this year. This isn't rocket science. I am surprised that the shippers even allow third parties to request real-time rates without dimensions or is CS-Cart using the default dimension in the shipping settings --- because essentially isn't the shipper not ignoring the weight since there is no exception to dimensional weight calculation below a max weight anymore (as I've read.)

We can continute the conversation here:

http://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/42628-shipping-cost-based-on-dimensional-weight-multiple-product-types/

CS-Cart is just using a fake dimension. The one set in the shipping settings. This will generally result in a false shipping cost calculation.

This one issue stops us from using CS-Cart for larger enterprise customers.

Fotis has released this which may be handy for you

http://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/51692-dimensional-weight-for-cs-cart/