How to Troubleshoot Dimensional Boxes Not Packing as Expected

Overview

You may have products that should be packed into boxes in a particular way. Occasionally, you might run into an issue where products are not packed into the boxes that are expected.

Pre-requisites: This article assumes that you are using the Dimensional Shipping Advanced Feature and have Defined Boxes and Packages.

Example

In this example the below boxes are defined, each with a box tolerance of 0 and no maximum quantities:

Small – 4″ x 5″ x 5″, max weight 5lb.
Medium – 7″ x 7″ x 7″, max weight 10lb.
Large – 7″ x 7″ x 7″, max weight 18lb.
Extra Large – 20″ x 20″ x 20″, max weight 45lb.

PRODUCT A is in the cart with dimensions of 2″ x 2″ x 2″, and a weight of 4lb.

Based on the above scenario, we have the following Expectation:

  • When 1 quantity of PRODUCT A is in the cart on its own, we want the small box to be used.
  • For a quantity of 2, the medium box should be used.
  • When there is a quantity of 3 in the cart, we want one small and one medium box to be used, since the carrier will quote a lower rate than if the large box is used.

However, the large box is used instead.

Explanation

When a quantity of 3 of PRODUCT A is in the cart, the large box is favored over a small box + medium box because the large box has a sufficient weight capacity for all of the products in the cart, and the dimensions are the same as the medium box.

There is nothing between these boxes that denotes that the large box should not be used, so it will be picked over the combination of one small box with one medium box.

Similarly, if there is a quantity of five in the cart, which is over the volume and weight of the large box, then the extra large box will be used as there is sufficient capacity.

Solution

Removing the larger boxes from the list of possible boxes for PRODUCT A will use multiples of the smaller boxes. If you don’t want to remove the larger boxes because you use them elsewhere, you can create a Packing Rule to restrict PRODUCT A to only pack in the smaller boxes.

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