Shipment Splitting Based on Weight, SKU, and (Maybe) Dimensions and LTL Shipments

[jsmithaidistro]

Hey all, 

Our ShipStation rep asked me to post this idea here. I manage a young (less than 2 years old), fast-growing distribution company. We carry almost 200 different products and ship exclusively through UPS' parcel service. We recently discovered ShipStation's ability to work with Master Tracking Numbers (one "main" tracking number with a family of other tracking numbers that are linked) and I discovered an interesting issue. We have auto-split shipments currently set-up and I asked our rep if we could do auto-split with a sorting feature that limits each shipment to what will fit in a single box with a collective/final weight of less than 50 LB.

Let me provide an example: Let's say a customer orders 50 SKUs total. The collective weight is 462 pounds (purposely using a weird number); thus, we need to have at least 10 separate boxes, if not more, to account for our desire to stay under the 50 LB/box weight limit UPS has before major charges occur for heavy shipments. Ideally, ShipStation's features, along with our information put in for weight (and dimensions even!), would allow us to organize and utilize our warehouse team's time and packing ability to ensure we get as close to 50 LB as possible without going over, but close enough to where we utilize the space in the boxes, such as having a combination of smaller SKUs and one heavier SKU in one box that adds up to, say, 48 pounds, while another box of heavier SKUs adds up to 45 LB. 

I hope this makes sense and I can expound on this as needed, but would love to see this feature to better help us (and other distributors/retailers/small businesses) utilize and optimize their shipping experiences to save time, money, and overage charges on weight whilst utilizing UPS and other parcel services for larger orders.

Another idea, too, is to allow ShipStation to allow us to book LTL shipments (using our existing account(s)) with LTL carriers so that the PRO numbers pull over and can be automatically sent to our customers. I mentioned this before to our prior rep and it sounded like something ShipStation would work on, but wanted to make sure I threw it out there.

[CaraAdmin]

Hello @jsmithaidistro!

First, welcome to the Community! We're so glad you're here. This space is an excellent resource for finding answers, sharing feedback, and suggesting new product features—we hope you find it helpful and inspiring!

We appreciate you sharing this fantastic idea—your input plays a significant role in helping us grow and improve. Let’s see if we can gather more feedback from the community to highlight how valuable this feature would be. If you’d like to see this feature become a reality, don’t forget to give it a thumbs up to show your support!

Happy Shipping!

-Cara