Store Manager: Shipping and Boxes Editor

Use this tool to configure your shipping and boxes to help ensure accurate shipping rates are calculated for your customers in your shopping cart.

Calculating shipping costs is straightforward IF (and this is a big 'if') there is logic that can be programmed so your web store can pass accurate weights and dimensions to UPS or FedEx. If you can't document your shipping rules based on specific box sizes and product weights, it will be impossible to get accurate freight estimates. 

Input to setup your shipping and boxes includes (but is not limited to):

  • Preferred shipper (UPS or Fedex) and corresponding shipping services (Ground, 2nd Day Air, etc.)
  • Total order weight to trigger a message indicating you will determine the best shipping method to get back to them with a freight quote.
  • Shipping Classes: You can name each of your shipping classes and indicate what the ship from zip code is (great for drop-shipments), Flat per-order and per-box handling fees if applicable and standard lead time for that shipping class.
  • Standard Shipping Boxes: Include length, width, height and weight of box plus optional per-box handling fees or a flat shipping rate if it applies to this box type.
  • The number of products assigned to a shipping class that will fit in the corresponding box
  • Optional 'store wide' per-box and per-order fees

Example: 24"x36" Coroplast posters

The images at the left are related to how we set up shipping for 24"x36" Coroplast posters On GardenCenterMarketing.com. The system allows us to enter everything we need to be able to accurately calculate the number of 24"x36"x4" boxes and weight of each box, we will need to ship those products. 

Each sheet of Coroplast weighs 1lb and up to 17 signs will fit in one box.

If a customer orders 4 of the 24"x36" signs, the system knows that there will be:

  • One box, shipping from 27540
  • Weight of 6 lbs (4 x 1lb = 4lbs for the weight of Coroplast plus 2lbs for the weight of box)

If a customer orders 22 of the 24"x36" signs, the system knows that there will be:

  • Two boxes, shipping from 27540 (one box of 17 signs and one box of 5 signs)
  • First box weight of 19 lbs (17 x 1lb = 17lbs for the weight of Coroplast plus 2lbs for the weight of box)
  • Second box weight of 7 lbs (5 x 1lb = 5lbs for the weight of Coroplast plus 2lbs for the weight of box)

Garbage In, Garbage Out

If you don't have good data and a consistent methodology to know the sizes, quantities and weights of all boxes for an order prior to packing the order, it is virtually impossible for the web store to calculate accurate shipping rates. If so, you may want to consider a percentage of the order value or some other formula to calculate freight in your shopping cart. In those situations, some of our customers charge a percentage of order value with minimums and maximums or a flat fee plus a small additional charge per item in the shopping cart. 

Product and Plant Weights and Dimensions

The weight of individual plants and products are associated with their corresponding SKU in our Plant Database Editor or Product Database Editor.

Seeing is Believing

If you are interested in adding online shopping to an existing website we have built for you, or you would like to chat about how our shipping and boxes editor can be incorporated into a new website we can build for you, let us know. We'd be happy to schedule a webinar to demonstrate this or any other of our solutions.