Canada Post Multiple Boxes - calculating extra additional boxes required?

[SandyT]

I've scoured the forums off and on for about a week attempting to solve this one. There are a few similar threads, but nothing has helped thus far.

I've only got one shipping module installed: Canada Post. None of my products have the "Item ships in its original box" checkbox checked. All my products have their dimensions and weights set in cms and kgs, and the CP shipping module settings match.

I add three products to my cart, 1 of each: (12x14x15), (14x16x17) and (8x17x22). They total 0.966kgs.

I have them here in front of me, and they easily fit in a moderately-sized box of 30x25x20. The Shipping Estimator tells me it'll take 3 boxes to ship these three products from Canada to the US, while shipping the same three items within Canada or to Germany only requires 1 box.

I have called Canada Post about it, and they suggested I configure more boxes to give their software more options that may be "just right" rather than just a few massive "catch all" boxes. I only had 4 boxes configured at the time, of vastly differing dimensions, so they seemed to have a valid point. As of this writing, I've configured all 20 possible boxes in CanadaPost's Sell Online, a number of which are seemingly ideal for those three products, but I still keep getting 3 boxes for US destinations.

While I was talking to CP, they also pointed out an oddity which I'd like to check out before calling them back. Apparently their server is reporting back that I need TWO boxes for this order, but the shipping estimator is telling me THREE. So ZenCart is deciding to split the one box that CanadaPost said could hold two items into two boxes with one item in each. Is it doing that based on some overriding size or weight limit somewhere? In Configuration > Shipping/Packaging, I've set "Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship" to "30000" which may mean 30kgs, but probably means 30000kgs. What other setting could I be missing?

If anyone has any tips, I'm about ready to stop reading the same threads and trying the same "solutions" over and over.

Sandy

[Royal]

Hello Sandy,

Login to your Zen-Cart admin and go to Configuration: Then Shipping/Packaging.

This is how I setup my information:
Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship 22.72 What's your setting?
Package Tare Small to Medium - added percentage:weight 0:0 What's your setting?
Larger packages - added packaging percentage:weight 0:0 What's your setting?
Display Number of Boxes and Weight Status 3 What's your setting?

Package those 3 items together in a box. Take the dimension of the box. Add the information to sellonline.

[SandyT]

Hi Royal,

Thanks for the response.

Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship 30000 (I've tried 30, it makes no difference)
Package Tare Small to Medium - added percentage:weight 0:0.3
Larger packages - added packaging percentage:weight 0:0.5
Display Number of Boxes and Weight Status 3

They easily fit inside a box that is 30x25x20. I have configured all 20 boxes in SellOnline just to try and get it to work. I don't actually have predictably-sized boxes. I'm not a high volume shop so I'm recycling boxes that local shops throw away. Here are my SellOnline boxes, with two likely candidates highlighted:

Description, Weight Limit of Box(kg), Box Weight(kg), Length(cm), Width(cm), Height(cm)
100x50x50 30.000 0.500 100.0 50.0 50.0
30x30x30 30.000 0.300 30.0 30.0 30.0
60x60x60 30.000 0.500 60.0 60.0 60.0
15x15x15 30.000 0.100 15.0 15.0 15.0
100x50x50 30.000 0.500 100.0 50.0 50.0
100x30x30 30.000 0.500 100.0 30.0 30.0
100x20x20 30.000 0.500 100.0 20.0 20.0
75x50x50 30.000 0.500 75.0 50.0 50.0
75x40x40 30.000 0.500 75.0 40.0 40.0
75x30x30 30.000 0.500 75.0 30.0 30.0
75x20x20 30.000 0.500 75.0 20.0 20.0
50x40x40 30.000 0.500 50.0 40.0 40.0
50x30x30 30.000 0.500 50.0 30.0 30.0
50x20x20 30.000 0.500 50.0 20.0 20.0
25x50x50 30.000 0.500 25.0 50.0 50.0
25x40x40 30.000 0.500 25.0 40.0 40.0
25x30x30 30.000 0.500 25.0 30.0 30.0
25x20x20 30.000 0.500 25.0 20.0 20.0
50x50x50 30.000 0.500 50.0 50.0 50.0
40x40x40 30.000 0.500 40.0 40.0 40.0

I see now that my length, width and height dimensions are all entered with the smallest number first and largest number last, but Canada Post calls the length the largest dimension. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Canada Post's code may not be smart enough to take the largest dimension as the length. I can use SQL to swap those around fairly quickly. I'll go ahead and try that in a minute.

What is being referred to by RodG here when he says "two pieces of code at work"? I'm guessing the same thing is happening to me. Canada Post is reportedly splitting my three items into two boxes, but Zen is reporting that they are being split into three. So Zen is adding the third box. This is further evidenced by the fact the shipping amount Canada Post says their server is sending back is the same as the shipping amount that Zen is reporting.

Sandy

[SandyT]

I see now that my length, width and height dimensions are all entered with the smallest number first and largest number last, but Canada Post calls the length the largest dimension. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Canada Post's code may not be smart enough to take the largest dimension as the length. I can use SQL to swap those around fairly quickly. I'll go ahead and try that in a minute.

Ensuring the largest dimension was in the length made no difference.

ALTER TABLE zen_products ADD products_tempdimension DECIMAL( 6, 2 ) NOT NULL AFTER products_height;
UPDATE zen_products SET products_tempdimension = products_height;
UPDATE zen_products SET products_height = products_length;
UPDATE zen_products SET products_length = products_tempdimension;
ALTER TABLE zen_products DROP products_tempdimension;

Sandy

[SandyT]

(Sorry for the triple posting. I'm not used to the 7 minute editing window.)

I've also tried your Configuration > Shipping/Packaging settings but there was no difference in behaviour.

Sandy

[SandyT]

Update. I've been in touch with Canada Post again. They seem to have lost their patience with assuring me the problem is entirely on my end. They have sent me detailed log files which convince me of this, so they have my sympathy for having to deal with yet another underprepared do-it-yourselfer. CP is receiving the right figures from ZC, they are coming up with the correct box(es), and sending the correct data back to ZC. Things get mangled at some point after that.

I can see from the logs that most US shipping options are returning 1 box. However, US Small Packets (Air and Surface) have rather small maximums, meaning it would take more small boxes to use that shipping method. The Small Packet max weight is 1kg, max size of any one dimension is 60cms, but the max girth (L+2W+2W) is only 90cms. Some 90cm girth box examples are 30x15x15, 26x16x16, 22x17x17, 18x18x18, 24x24x18, or 26x26x12. It would take three of those boxes to send the order I was originally submitting as my test case... although two of my products were too large to fit in the only small-packet-compatible box I had set up in SellOnline.

I'll definitely be adding some of the Small Packet boxes above to my SellOnline box definitions.

Check these screen shots out. 8 items in the first order, 9 in the second. Each item is a 6cm cube that weighs 111 grams. 8 of them is a 12cm cube weighing 888 grams and fits into my 15 cubic cm box. In the second screen shot, I've added ONE more product, and suddenly I need two more boxes? The shipping cost goes up by about $5 to the amount that is about double the cost to send 4 or 5 of these items in one box... so the value seems correct, the number of boxes is just off.





Clearly something is wonky.

I'll post some conclusions and the code changes in a little while.

Sandy

[SandyT]

Okay, this is probably my last post.

I've tweaked includes\modules\shipping\canadapost.php to hide the boxes. Lines 184 and 185 are setting the shipping method title that gets used on both the shipping estimates popup and the shipping method step of the checkout:

$this->quotes = array('id' => $this->code,
                              'module' => $this->title . ' (' . $this->boxCount . MODULE_SHIPPING_PACKAGING_RESULTS . ')');

I changed them to the following:

$this->quotes = array('id' => $this->code,
                              'module' => $this->title);
//                              'module' => $this->title . ' (' . $this->boxCount . MODULE_SHIPPING_PACKAGING_RESULTS . ')');

In addition to the above, I added some carefully calculated small packet boxes to SellOnline to ensure my customers could take advantage of those lower rates when applicable. Here are some samples:

30x15x15 - about the size of a roll of paper towel
26x16x16
22x17x17
18x18x18 - would fit a Nintendo Game Cube

27x27x9 - a couple of dinner plates
26x26x12
25x25x15
24x24x18
23x23x21 - would easily fit a Power Mac G4 Cube

Sandy

[soxophoneplayer]

Canada Post module won't 'flip' objects to make multiples fit in one box.

For example, I can actually get three objects in one box if I put two objects high, plus one object beside the two-stack, on its side. But CP will try to put the three objects stacked, which will not fit my box dimensions, so therefore it will call of 2 boxes.

I dealt with this quite simply by defining a new theoretical box that would fit the 3 objects stacked. The weight and volume is actually identical, so my pricing will still be accurate.

So...it seems that CP lines up all the heights, all the widths, and all the depths when calculting multiples.

[davegwalker]

Hi Sorry to leech onto this thread but it seems like a lot of you have a good knowledge of the Canada Post Module. When I ship a product it tells me how many boxes I need but it doesn't tell me which boxes to use (which I have set up on sell online). I called CP and they said that they can see which box name comes up to be used but they think that there is a problem with the shopping cart as it is not getting the information. any ideas?