Live Pricing - Automatic Packing Rules

Live Pricing - Automatic Packing Rules

What Are Packing Rules & Why Are They Important

The goal of packing rules is to maximise your freight recovery, without overcharging for freight. 

​The idea of packing rules is not to perfectly represent how they will be packed in the warehouse - only to get close enough to generate a reasonable freight quote so that you don't lose on freight, and customers are not overcharged.

Here is a summary of what they are, and why they are important:
  1. The price a carrier charges your business for the various services they offer is determined by the weight and dimensions of the packages that you ship a given order in.
  2. When someone reaches the checkout, we have a list of products and quantities from their cart - but without knowing how you would pack these products into the final packages you would send them in, we are unable to generate an accurate freight price.
  3. A simple way to understand this is, if you bought 5 t-shirts, they would be stuffed into a satchel by your warehouse and you would be charged based on the satchel weights and dimensions - not the individual weights and dimensions of the t-shirts.
  4. Automated packing rules aim to take the items in the customers cart, and convert them into these packages in a way that simulates how your warehouse team will pack the items in the customers cart for this quoted price to be accurate.
  5. Automated packing rules can also be used to speed up the pick, pack and shipping process if they are used when creating consignments by auto-applying these "estimated" packages.
This guide explains the common methods that we have available for packaging, and the pros and cons of each method.

Underneath the video, the data has been summarised should you wish to read instead.



  1. 1:50 - 20:25 - Packing Rules
    1. 4:10 - 7:45 - Method 1: Pack All Items Individually
    2. 7:45 - 13:00 - Method 2: Weight-Based Packing
    3. 13:00 - 18:10 - Addition Options for Method 2
    4. 18:10 - 20:25 - Packing Rule FAQs

Method 1: Pack Each Item Individually

With this method, we do not attempt to package the items in the users cart at all - instead, each items is treated as a separate line on the consignment.

For this method to work, we must have the weights, dimensions and carton types of all products.

These weights and dimensions can be loaded into MachShip, or taken from the platform - depending on the platfoms capabilites.

Currently, only WooCommerce & Magento 2 have the ability to capture and store these box details - other platforms that want to do live pricing need to load their weights and dimensions into MachShip.

Product Weights & Dimensions
Here are the weights and dimensions of these example products - these would be uploaded to Machship for most systems:

Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
RED-SHIRT 20 20 3 0.2kg Satchel 1
BARBELL-5KG 20 15 15 5kg Carton 1
ROTARY-PHONE 30 30 30 10kg Carton 1
TABLE 200 150 100 29kg Carton 1
CHAIR 150 100 120 50kg Skid 1
CABINET 300 200 150 150kg Pallet 1

Here is an example of what would be quoted on the consignment for two example orders:

Sample Order 1- Using Method 1

Example order 1 is as follows:
Product SKU
 Qty Weight (EACH)
RED-SHIRT 2 0.2kg
BARBELL-5KG 1 5kg
ROTARY-PHONE 1 10kg

The output for this order using this method is:

Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
RED-SHIRT 20 20 3 0.2kg Satchel 2
BARBELL-5KG 20 15 15 5kg Carton 1
ROTARY-PHONE 30 30 30 10kg Carton 1
The businesses method one works best for are:
  • Sellers of heavy items - if you're selling heavy things, your freight is charged based on weight rather than volume, so it doesn't matter if the final dimensions are correct, only the total weight
  • 3PLs - If you're pulling goods off the shelf and don't re-package them into smaller cartons.
  • Low Qty Sellers - If customers tend to buy 1 or 2 items, rather than larger qtys, then the volume difference between the quoted boxes and the final cartons, if the items were to be consolidated, will be limited, so the quote is more accurate.
  • Pros:
    • Easy to setup
    • Good for heavy items
  • Cons
    • Must maintain box data for every single product
    • Freight charged to the customer may be higher than what you are, but rarely lower
       

Method 2: Weight-Based Packing

With this method, we bundle the items in the customers cart into the smallest possible container based on the total weight of the order items.

Here is an example of weight breaks that we may setup:
 
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Limit Item Type Qty
SATCH 20 30 10 1kg Satchel 1
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 5kg Carton 1


CARTON-LG 50 50 50 20kg Carton 1
SKID-A 75 75 75 150kg Skid 1
PALLET-A 100 100 120 375kg Pallet 1



Now based on the above, we select the smallest possible package, based on the weight limit provided, that is greater than the total of the item weights in the cart.

Sample Order 1 - Using Method 2
Example order one is as follows:
Product SKU
 Qty Weight (EACH)
RED-SHIRT 2 0.2kg
BARBELL-5KG 1 5kg
ROTARY-PHONE 1 10kg

The total of the items on Sample Order 1 is 15.4kg (noting there are 2 x RED-SHIRT).
 
The output packages for this order using this method is:
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
CARTON-LG 50 50 50 15.4kg Carton 1

This is the smallest carton that is above the total order weight of 15.4kg.

This is likely a better method for grouping this type of order than method 1, because a number of smaller items like this would be combined into one carton.

Sample Order 2 - Using Method 2

Example order two is as follows:

Product SKU Qty Weight (EACH)
TABLE 1 29kg
CHAIR 3 50kg
CABINET 1 150kg

Total order weight is 329kg - (noting there are 3 x Chairs)
 
The output packages for this order using this method is:

Item SKU Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
PALLET-A 100 100 120 329kg Pallet 1

In this outcome, you will note that the final pallet probably isn't suitable for pricing this type of order.

The furniture items were very large, and likely would be shipped separately, method 1 is likely to be a more suitable option/setup here.
 
Handling Overweight Items & Orders
  • For Overweight Items: When a single items' weight exceeds the biggest containers weight limit, we place that item by itself inside that biggest container. The remaining items that are below the biggest weight threshold are packed together.
    • Note - this behaviour can be modified by using the "Do not pack items greater than the biggest break" option, discussed below. In that instance, rather than using the biggest box specified, the item is packed into it's own pre-specified container.
For example, lets say you had these as you boxes and limits:
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Limit Item Type Qty
SATCH 20 30 10 1kg Satchel 1
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 7kg Carton 1

And you had the following items in Machship:
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
RED-SHIRT 20 20 3 0.2kg Satchel 1
BARBELL-5KG 20 15 15 5kg Carton 1
ROTARY-PHONE 30 30 30 10kg Carton 1

If an order was placed for the following items:
Product SKU
 Qty Weight (EACH)
RED-SHIRT 2 0.2kg
BARBELL-5KG 1 5kg
ROTARY-PHONE 1 10kg

The resulting quoted items would be:
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 10kg Carton 1
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 5.4kg Carton 1

  • For Overweight Orders: When an orders' total weight exceeds the biggest specified containers weight limit, we add the largest container at its' full weight limit and then go through the list again, from smallest to largest, looking for a container that will fit the remaining weight of that order.
With the above example, if we were to amend the order to:
Product SKU
 Qty Weight (EACH)
RED-SHIRT 2 0.2kg
BARBELL-5KG 2 5kg
ROTARY-PHONE 1 10kg

The resulting quoted items would be:
Item SKU
 Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 10kg Carton 1
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 5kg Carton 1
CARTON-SM
30
30
30
5.4kg
 Carton
1

The second carton is added to hold a barbell, and since the next barbell would make the box exceed the 7kg weight limit, it starts a new box. It doesn't do this on the first box with the rotary phone, because a single item can't be broken into multiple cartons, but multiple items can.
  • Overweight Orders WITH Overweight Items: The rule around extracting overweight items to put in their own container occurs before we attempt to find a suitable container for the order items. Put another way, before we try and container the order, the items that exceed the largest weight limit container are extracted. This is shown in the above example.

Additional Method 2 Options

Inside method 2, we have additional options that can be used in order to improve the accuracy and usefulness of this method if you ship a combination of smaller and larger items.

Option 1: Products Heavier Than Largest Box Are Packed Individually

For this method, if an item exceeds the biggest box you specify, it would work like method one and just append the SKU itself as its own line inside the shipping quote.

Let's use this new example order 3:
Product SKU Qty Weight (EACH)
BARBELL-5KG 1 5kg
ROTARY-PHONE 1 10kg
CHAIR 1 50kg
And, let's say these are the weight breaks we have setup:

Item SKU Length Width Height Weight Limit Item Type Qty
SATCH 20 30 10 1kg Satchel 1
CARTON-SM 30 30 30 5kg Carton 1
CARTON-MD 40 40 40 10kg Carton 1
CARTON-LG 50 50 50 20kg Carton 1
Machship Items Catalogue:

Item SKU Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
CHAIR 150 100 120 50kg Skid 1
Based on this, the first two items (BARBELL-5KG and ROTARY-PHONE) would be combined into one box, while the CHAIR will be put in it's own pre-defined carton, as its weight (50kg) is greater than the biggest cartons' weight limit.

This outcome for quoting this would be:

Item SKU Length Width Height Weight Item Type Qty
CARTON-LG 50 50 50 15kg Carton 1
CHAIR 150 100 120 50kg Skid 1
As you can see, this is probably a reasonably accurate way to quote this order and it's a very useful method for clients that sell a combination of smaller items that would be packaged, and larger items that would be shipped as is.

Option 2: Specific Items Packed Individually

This option is similar to the above, but instead of relying on an item being larger than the biggest box, you can simply provide us with a list of SKUs that should not be boxed up.
Examples may be larger, lighter items - or longer items.
These items would simply use the dimension from the Machship product catalogue rather than being boxed.

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