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Easyship Product News
Easyship Feature: Setting Up Shipping Boxes Sizes for Accurate Rates
Read on our blog to learn how Easyship helps you get the precise box sizes you need for every shipment and prevents you paying hefty rate adjustments later.
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Last week, we introduced our new and improved product listing process which gives Easyship users more control over adding and editing products on the dashboard. We mentioned that properly managing your products on the dashboard can be useful for getting more accurate shipping rates and avoiding rate adjustments.
The reason for this is that your product listings will help our algorithm select the most appropriate shipping box size for each of your shipments - which in turn will give you accurate shipping rates. Here’s how it works.
Understanding Shipping Box Sizes
The Easyship dashboard allows you to set your own box sizes. This can then be used when you create shipments and will be factored into your quoted shipping rate.
Once you set up your custom box sizes on the dashboard, they will be available for you to select when creating shipments so that you don’t have to manually enter all this information each time.
When setting this up, you will see a section saying “Auto selection” with a toggle switch that allows you to move between auto or manual. This switch lets you decide whether to give the Easyship algorithm the option to consider this box when determining the best box for your shipment.
Essentially, if you have all your products listed in the Easyship dashboard (with their respective dimensions and weights), then when you create a shipment, you can simply input the contents of your order, and our algorithm will be able to choose your custom box as the best choice for the shipment based on its contents.
However, this will only work if you choose to allow auto selection when setting up your custom box; if you leave it as manual, you will have to choose then box yourself when creating a shipment. This is why we always advise you to enable auto selection.
On the shipping boxes page, you will also see courier flat-rate boxes - such as those offered by USPS - that are available to you. Again, you can use the “auto selection” toggle switch to enable our algorithm to consider these boxes for your shipments.
However, you should only set these to auto if you have access to these particular boxes from the specified courier - you will need this in order to proceed with the shipment. Right now, this feature is available to our users in the US, Canada, and Australia, but we’ll be rolling it out to other markets soon so stay tuned!
We will always try to find the smallest possible box to offer you the cheapest shipping rates - if the volumetric weight is higher than the dead weight you will be charged on the volumetric weight, which means you’ll pay more.
You can also set up your own automated shipping rules to force the system to choose a particular shipping box. This is very useful if you often send out the same specific shipment. For example, if you’re a clothing retailer that often sends out two t-shirts together or a makeup merchant that often ships a set of two lipsticks and an eyeshadow palette, then you can create an automated rule to force the algorithm to use a particular box for these shipments.
You should also know that whichever shipping box is picked by our algorithm will also be used to calculate “Rates at Checkout” if you have this enabled for your store. It’s important that your customers get to see accurate shipping rates, so if you use this feature, you want to ensure you have box sizes properly set up.
How Will This Help Easyship Users?
The main goals of setting up box sizes are to save you time when creating shipments and to give you more accurate shipping rates - which will then help you avoid charges for rate adjustments.
Since shipping rates are based on box dimensions and weights, our algorithm will determine the ideal size of the package according to its content, Often, the shipping box may be a bit too big for your products, so you’ll later end up having to pay more for your shipment. We help you find the best box out of the ones you’ve added and enable auto-selection so that you always get the most appropriately-sized box.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Box Sizes
- On the dashboard sidebar, navigate to “Settings” > “Boxes”
- Click “Add new box” and enter the box details (name, dimensions, weight)
- Choose whether to enable or disable “Auto selection” (we recommend enabling it)
- Check the available courier flat-rate boxes and enable or disable “Auto selection” for these as appropriate
- If necessary, go into “Shipping Rules” and set these up as necessary
- You’re all set! Next time you’re creating a shipment, you’ll be able to access your custom box information at the click of a button.
Take Control of Your Shipping by Managing Your Box Sizes
Setting up custom shipping box sizes allows you to have complete control over getting the precise box sizes you need for every shipment. This will also help our algorithm calculate the most accurate shipping rates for you so that you can avoid paying hefty rate adjustments later.
Did we mention it’ll also save you lots of time when creating shipments? Remember that you can always reach out to our support team for assistance if you ever need help managing your box sizes on the Easyship dashboard.
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