Packages Settings

Defining general package settings, default and predefined packages

Brendan Taylor avatar
Written by Brendan Taylor
Updated over a week ago

PLEASE NOTE: If your carrier does not require parcel dimensions to be submitted when creating consignments any dimensions displayed on your account will be ignored.

You can access your settings for packages by going to Settings => Packages on the main ReadyToShip menu.

The following sections explain each of the settings available.

Automatic Package Selection

Two options are available to determine how to calculate the package dimensions for an order. These are:

  • Use Item Dimensions

    ReadyToShip will calculate the optimal packing size based on the dimensions of all of the items in the order. Even if you have numerous items in an order ReadyToShip can calculate the most space efficient manner to package the order.
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  • Best Fit

    If you have predefined packages (see below) ReadyToShip will automatically choose which package to use, even if there are numerous items of different sizes, based on the optimal packing size calculated for the order.

  • Defined Package

    If you want all of your orders to always use the same size package, regardless of the dimensions data we are getting from your store, you can use this option to specify which of your defined packages is used.

If you change which method to use you can click the Apply Now button which will apply the selected method to any active orders in your account that you haven't begun processing (ie. all orders in your Unshipped Orders tab).

Default Package Settings

All ReadyToShip accounts have "Default Package Settings" which tell us what weight or dimensions to apply to an order if the order is missing any weight or dimensional data.

The standard "Default Package Settings" are 250 grams and 10cm x 10cm x 10cm however, you can change these to whatever values you require.

If you set the "Package weight when item weight is not defined" option to 0.00 any orders that contain items without weights will be flagged with a yellow warning flag to highlight that an item in the order doesn't have a weight defined.

Predefined Packages

You can predefine any number of package sizes which can then be used to automatically assign to an order (see the Best Fit option above) or to manually select during the pick/pack process.

A predefined package has the following options:

  • Title
    A descriptive name like "Small" or "A4 Satchel" or perhaps an identifier like "BX1"

  • Dimensions
    The length, width and height of the package. The calculated, optimal packing size of an order must fit within these dimensions.

  • Package weight when item weight is not defined
    If the items in an order don't have a weight defined use this value to specify the total order weight

  • Maximum weight allowed in this package
    In some circumstances you might want to limit the weight of an order that can use a predefined package. For example, if you were using AusPost's prepaid satchels you may create a predefined "3kg Satchel" and a "5kg Satchel" with limits of 3kg and 5kg respectively. If you had an order that totalled 4kg it would then use the "5kg Satchel" option.

  • Ignore item weights and force weight of
    Use of this option would be rare but sometimes you might want to override the aggregate item weight of an order.

    This could be the case where you have negotiated special rates with a carrier and they allow you to ship any weight of items in say a 3kg satchel as long as the items fit in the satchel.

    In that case you could specify this value as 3kg and, as long as the optimal packing size of the items in the order is less than the dimensions of the package the maximum weight declared would be 3kg.

  • Weight of box and packaging materials
    Use this value to add the weight of the packaging materials to the aggregated weight of any items in the order. For example, if you are defining a package that is a cardboard box that weighs 200 grams you would set this value to 0.2kg.

    Regardless of the weight of the items in an order that use this package size a further 200 grams would be added when requesting a rate quote from a carrier or creating a consignment label.

You can edit a predefined package at any time but any changes will not be applied to existing orders that have already been set to use the predefined package.

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