You can create an Automation Rule to automatically apply the appropriate packages when an order matches specific criteria, such as its products, quantities or total weight.

For example, if an order contains 24 bottles of wine, you can automatically assign 2 × 12-bottle cartons to the order.

Before creating the rule, make sure the packages you want to use have been created under Settings > Packages. These are the packages that will be available to select in the rule.

⚠️ Important: Once an Automation rule has run against an order, the changes cannot be undone through Automation.

We recommend creating new Automatic rules as Inactive, then using Dry run to check which orders will match before making the rule Active.

Go to Settings > Automation and click New Rule.

Enter a Title that makes it easy to identify what the rule does.

For example:

24 bottles – Assign 2 x 12 bottle cartons

For Type, select:

For a new Automatic rule, leave Active turned off while you set up and test the rule.

Click Add Condition Group.

For this example, we want to identify orders containing 24 bottles of wine.

Set the conditions to identify the total quantity:

Order.Total Line Item Quantity

Equals

24

When an imported order contains 24 of WINE-001, it will match the rule.

Click Add Action and select:

Modify Packages

The packages available to select are the Defined Packages you have created under Settings > Packages.

For this example, select your predefined:

12-bottle carton

then select it again to add a second package

Note: If the package you need isn't available, go to Settings > Packages and create it first. You can then return to the Automation Rule and select it.

Under Package weight, choose how ReadyToShip should calculate the weight of the packages created by the rule.

There are three options:

For our example, select:

Distribute order weight evenly

ReadyToShip will distribute the item weight of the 24 bottles across the 2 × 12-bottle cartons, then add any applicable packaging weight.

Note: If you use Force Weight or Default Weight in your Defined Packages, these settings are also taken into account when calculating package weights.

Click Save, then use Dry run to check which orders match.

Check that orders containing 24 bottles of WINE-001 are being identified correctly.

If the correct orders are returned, set the rule to Active.

ReadyToShip will now automatically assign 2 × 12-bottle cartons and distribute the order weight between them when a matching order is imported.

In this example, we used SKU and Item Quantity to determine which packages should be applied.

You can also use Order.Total Order Weight to apply packages based on the combined weight of an order.

For example:

Order.Total Order Weight → Greater than → 10

You could then use Modify Packages to apply a particular Defined Package to orders weighing more than 10 kg.

You can create additional rules for the different products, quantities, weights or package combinations you regularly ship.

Your Defined Packages can be reused across these rules.

Tip: If you create multiple package rules, make sure their conditions don't unintentionally overlap. Use Dry run to check which orders each rule matches before making them Active.

If you have several package rules that could match the same order, their position in your Automation list is important.

You may also want package rules to run before rules that assign a carrier and service, so the correct package details are applied before the shipping rule runs.

For example, your rules may run in this order:

If a rule has Stop after this rule enabled, any rules below it won't run when that rule matches.

Tip: If you have several rules that could match the same order, check their position in your Automation list. See Set the priority of Automation Rules for more information.