Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

[Jim Cockerham]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Maybe we need to get Paul on the Tetris team :) Thanks for the info Rick! Is Surepost still in works for the next update?

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Surepost was never in the works for the NEXT update, since that's imminent. But it is in the works for the June/July release of 9.0004 along with FedEx One Rate.

[lesliekirk]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Thanks Paul for bringing this up. I too am looking for a volume packing/shipping solution. One that knows when a box is full and will add additional boxes into the shipping calculations. Weight does need to play into since most carriers have upper limits on an individual box.

On a side note, the store owner is also looking for other Miva store owners that are trying to deal with this to see what solutions they may have come up with.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

The new cubic box packing module is in 9.0004.

[dachenbach]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

After much experimentation I finally understand the new "Pack by Cubic Volume" module does NOT use our configured boxes on the Boxes tab, but rather makes up box dimensions (cubes) on-the-fly. Is this correct? If so, is the module basically doing what Paul proposed earlier?

As an example if I have one 9"x5"x4" item, 1.50 lbs in my order, will miva come up with 180 cubic inches in volume, take the cube root (5.64") and send a 6"x6"x6" box weighing 1.50 lbs to the carrier? For two of this same item would miva would send an 8x8x8 box weighing 3 lbs?

For the benefit of others like me who are testing this feature and are trying to "predict" the rate that UPS Online Tools will generate, generally speaking should UPS Online Tools return rates that would match UPS.com quotes exactly given the same input parameters? (I guess this question pertains to any of the Packing methods: Weight/Qty/Cubic Volume).

[Jim Cockerham]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Dachenbach -

Have you been able to confirm that your thoughts were correct on this? Are you using the "Pack by cubic volume" method?

Thanks - Jim

[dachenbach]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Hi Jim C,

I asked this specific question of miva support:
>Can you confirm that miva doesn't use my configured box sizes at all for this module?

and got the following answer:

>Pack by cube has a dimensions setting and where you set the dimensions of your cube and the software plays tetris to fit all the stuff in to that one box.

...but I'm not sure that accurately/fully characterizes how the module works. I don't think it plays tetris. It does some math with the product dimensions and comes up with a cubic box with the same cubic volume as the products in your order. You can set your "biggest box" size in the module (not to be confused with the Boxes tab), but I still don't have any official information as to how box sizes are computed when the parameters are sent to the carrier; it certainly doesn't send the "biggest box" size (from the Cubic Module), and I don't think it sends any of your configured Boxes (from the Boxes tab) either. I think it makes one up based on the contents of the order.

I think "tetris" is the holy grail but this module isn't there yet. It's ideal in theory because we have all sizes and weights of products in our store and they're often not proportional (we have large light & heavy items and small heavy & light items) and customers can order any combination of those items so neither Pack by Weight nor Pack by Quantity (both of which know little about dimensions) are ideal for us.

There are a couple improvements I'd need to see first before I start using it, which I would love to do:
- Figure out why miva doesn't seem to be sending an order weight with the Pack by Cubic Volume test orders I've tried.
- In my opinion the module should follow box packing rules (using the boxes in the Boxes tab) rather than fabricating boxes. We know the cubic volume of our order and we know the cubic volume of our boxes. Perhaps the module could fill up boxes starting with the smallest and continuing to obey "don't use boxes smaller than the product" rules. (FWIW, I can also envision the use case for the box-fabrication method, but not for me)
- Pack by Cubic Volume is perfect if you only sell 1 inch cubes (which I'm starting to wish I did). Otherwise there will be some "packing" inefficiencies. I would like to see some sort of "efficiency threshold" expressed as a percentage which tells miva "on average I think I pack my boxes 85% full", and then have miva pack accordingly.
- "Smallest box" may also be helpful but not required. I probably won't send a jar of spices in a 2" cube but I suppose I could.
- I would also love the idea of supporting inside/outside box dimensions since we ship some items in insulated containers but that's maybe a bit of a specialized feature.
- While I'm at it, it seems like support a "box weight" for each actual cardboard box in the Boxes tab is a critical feature for all packing types.

Finally with regard to my last point in the previous post:

For the benefit of others like me who are testing this feature and are trying to "predict" the rate that UPS Online Tools will generate, generally speaking should UPS Online Tools return rates that would match UPS.com quotes exactly given the same input parameters? (I guess this question pertains to any of the Packing methods: Weight/Qty/Cubic Volume).

The answer is "yes" - you can get your miva store rate estimates to match UPS.com exactly using the miva UPS Online Tools module. I'm so glad I FINALLY know this. There are just a few "gotchas" you need to be aware of (easier logging would be a huge help in debugging this). Namely, make sure that the commercial/residential distinction and the daily pickup vs retail rate distinction between what Miva is sending and what UPS.com are correct. This will help ensure a correct rate estimate/comparison. I discovered that when miva sends the full destination address to UPS, UPS can detect it as commercial and return a commercial rate (which may be correct; I just wasn't expecting it when comparing).

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Box Weight is coming in 9.0005. FYI.

[Jim Cockerham]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Dachenbach - thank you very much for the explanation! Looks like I should hold off.

Rick - Thanks for the update! Does this mean that you can assign the actual weight of the cardboard box or is is meant to assign a total weight to the box (for example the dimensional weight)? It would be great if the module could look at the actual total weight of the products in the box and compare it to the defined dimensional weight of that box and then send the greater to the carrier.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Jim,

No, what we're adding is the ability to add a box/packaging weight on a per box basis, so that you can send more accurate weights to UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc...

[dachenbach]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

It would be great if the module could look at the actual total weight of the products in the box and compare it to the defined dimensional weight of that box and then send the greater to the carrier.

Jim,

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish with this but you shouldn't have to worry about which weight you send to UPS (I assume FedEx works similarly). UPS will determine which is greater: the "actual" weight of the packed box you send or the dimensional weight based on the dimensions you send and they'll generate a rate accordingly based on which is larger.

Rick,
Awesome. That feature gets us closer. Thanks!

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Dachenbach,

We're confused by this quote from you: "- Figure out why miva doesn't seem to be sending an order weight with the Pack by Cubic Volume test orders I've tried."

Can you explain what you mean?

[dachenbach]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Rick,

I went back and re-ran some of the tests I'd reported in my ticket and I was able to "reproduce" the issue. However, I think I also figured out what was causing me to see "incorrect" (stale) shipping rates. To summarize: as I was trying to figure out how this module comes up with its box dimensions I would manipulate shipping settings in the admin including product weights and dimensions. I was finding that this seemed to have no bearing at all on the shipping rate because I'd go back to my cart, refresh OSEL and the rate would be the same. I could add 40 lbs to a product and the rate would stay the same. What I learned today was that as long as I had the items in my cart miva generates the same shipping rate. Instead, I must REMOVE all the items from my cart and re-add them for the updated item weight/dimensions to take effect.

I think I can change SOME shipping-related settings (box dimensions, max weights) and the changes WILL be reflected by simply refreshing OSEL but perhaps there is something persistent about item properties like weight/dimension that stay with the cart.

Once I started "rebuilding" my customer cart after every time I changed an item weight/dimension in admin I began seeing the exact rates I was expecting at UPS.com based on my guess for how the module comes up with box dimensions for the API. This is great news!

If you can confirm this is expected behavior (to have to clear my cart for item dimensions/weights to have an effect on the shipping rate) I can modify the comment in my previous post to be more accurate and hopefully reduce confusion for someone else. Thanks!

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Dachenbach,

This is the answer I got from Dev: "He shouldn't have to re-add the item to the cart if he changes its dimensions, but he would have to do so if he changes the weight."

[Jim Cockerham]

Re: Dimensional Shipping Rules - 2015 UPS and FedEx Dimensional Weight Policy

Jim,
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish with this but you shouldn't have to worry about which weight you send to UPS (I assume FedEx works similarly). UPS will determine which is greater: the "actual" weight of the packed box you send or the dimensional weight based on the dimensions you send and they'll generate a rate accordingly based on which is larger.

Sorry, I confused myself there for a minute. After reading back what I wrote, I realized that is how the module probably works already. So as you mentioned previously, if the module can take the cubic dimensions of the products and then fit them into a predefined box size, that should almost solve our problem. You mentioned that the Pack by cube does not seem to work with the predefined boxes that you set up though right?

I am going to start testing this too on my dev site so I can better understand how it works. Does the module have to be downloaded, because I can't seem to find it?

Our big problem now is that we have light items that have to ship in a "larger" box and our rates from Miva / UPS which are current using weight only are obviously way off do to the dimensions. I would hate to be shipping styro foam cups these days.