Do’s & Don’ts of Dimensional Shipping


Whether you’re shipping domestically or internationally dimensional weight is changing the way retailers need to calculate ship costs. And, with recent rate increases by Fedex and UPS starting in January of 2017 it’s important to understand the best way to safely package products without losing control of shipping budgets or passing additional unnecessarily high shipping costs on to customers.


SkyBOX Checkout helps retailers effortlessly enter international markets and one of our areas of expertise is optimizing a retailer’s product catalog to calculate dimensional shipping costs. Here are a few of our team’s tips for improving your dimensional shipping procedures:


1. Take Note of Where Your Product Catalog is at Today. Check if your product catalog is storing physical or dimensional weight. If you are not storing dimensional weight begin to by entering the box sizes that you typically ship each item or product category with into your product catalog. If you are using drop shippers for your items request the dimensions from the manufacturers to incorporate this information into your product catalog.
2. Start Calculating Dimensional Weight Correctly. Once you have dimensions entered you can use a formula to calculate the dimensional weight based on the package dimensions. The industry standard for dimensional weight for international shipments is Length x Width x Height of the Box/ 139. The formula for domestic shipments is LxWxH/166. Check carefully with your logistics provider on what formula they’re using to calculate dimensional weight based on the destination. FedEX recently announced they’ll change the divisor for dimensional weight to 139 for their shipments.
3. Decide When to Use Dimensional v. Physical Weight. Once you have your dimensional weight stored in your database you can use an If Then formula to determine when to calculate off of physical or dimensional weight. Apply whichever weight is greater to accurately calculate the shipping cost.
4. Evaluate Your Current Packaging Procedures. Take note of what box sizes you’re using currently. If it is possible repackage to reduce empty package space or buy different packaging material to avoid having empty filler space in shipments it can save you and your customer’s serious shipping dollars. Consider implementing padded mailers for small items as opposed to boxes.
5. Monitor & Improve. Once you get an initial dimensional weight shipping process in place monitor and tweak the packaging materials used and dimensions stored in your system to optimize this process.
Have more questions about how to master dimensional weight shipping or best practices for international ecommerce? Contact SkyBOX Checkout today to learn more about how we can help you reach more customers in more markets.

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