Set Package Type For Best Shipping Rate Strategy

[KairaColdest]

Easy to set the automation rule for Best Shipping Rate, which was very helpful to no longer have to manually compare shipping prices with different carriers. However, we can't set the package type to auto-fill with Best Shipping Rate on. In automation options, you can only choose your next action after best shipping rate to pick "set carrier/service/package" which completely makes the best shipping strategy irrelevant. Currently, we are going through hundreds, sometimes thousands of orders per day and having to set the package type manually for each order. We would like a way to auto assign our CHOSEN package type to every order that auto chooses Best Shipping Rate. Is anyone else having this issue? It takes way too long to manually assign package types.

[Moderator-Davis]

Hey there @KairaColdest, 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! 

I would love to hear if any community members have come up with a solution.  

[JakeM]

You can bulk set package type (assuming you have package dimensions set via automation) by first:

1) Filtering (in the orders screen) for packages that need a particular package type set--this would be accomplished via automation rules. I do not directly filter by which shipping strategy or which carrier but rather by tags that are assigned as part of automation. For instance, certain packages are set directly to 'USPS  - Flat Rate Padded' or 'Fedex 2 Day - OneRate Pak'; these also have the respective tags 'USPS' and 'Fedex' applied to them at the same time.  I then filter for all orders that do not contain either of these flags. You may have additional filters if you are using package types other than package--the process is the same. 

2) Select all the filtered packages and then Bulk Update package and dimensions of 0x0x0. Note that the carrier does not seem to matter for the standard "package" type, and it can be easier to set everything if you have properly excluded package types you do not use in the shipping section of the settings page.

3) Go to automation rules (settings -> automation) and then reprocess all automation rules. Wait until you get the message that this has finished. Do not do anything with orders until that message is displayed. 

4) Refresh the orders page; you now have package type set for all orders selected earlier in the process. 

[Moderator-Davis]

Hi @JakeM, 

Thank you so much for posting this solution you utilize! 

Your participation and assistance with other members is truly appreciated 🙂 

[JakeM]

For @KairaColdest or anyone else finding this post in the future, I have found a better method of accomplishing this, you can find it detailed here. 

[ShawnSingh]

This is definitely one of the drawbacks of shipping strategies. We’ve been using shippingplus.co to help us automate this process in ShipStation. In Shipping plus you can set the package type as part of the rate shopping automation rules and then it will populate the shipping profile perfectly in ShipStation. Works seamlessly with Shipstation 

[Parthlalchandan]

Hi Guys,

We use a 3rd party software called String (Meetstring.com) to automatically update the order with the correct package size and shipping service.

Since using String we have been able to cut our shipping costs by around $7.50 per package, and have been able to cut the extra charges by the shipping carriers be making sure that the items were packaged in the correct package sizes.

Check them out!

thanks