Products Without Weights and the Shipping Quotes They Make

Three dollars for a cast iron pan

An order arrives for a cast iron pan, and the customer paid $3 to ship it across the province. That afternoon, a shopper buying a pair of socks is quoted $40 and leaves.

Neither price came from the carrier's real rates. Both came from what the shop had entered about the products, which in these cases was almost nothing.

The pan had no weight, so the cart priced a parcel weighing next to nothing. The socks had no size, so the cart packed them in the largest box it knew.

How a cart works out a live rate

When a shopper enters a postal code, the cart describes the parcel to the carrier: its weight, its box dimensions, where it ships from and where it is going.

The carrier returns prices for that parcel, and the cart displays them. The answer is only as good as the description, which is built from each product's details.

When a product has no weight or size, the cart does not stop to ask. It falls back to a default set somewhere in its settings, often years ago.

Where the wrong numbers come from

Odd quotes usually trace back to a few causes, and most shops have several at once:

• Blank weights, replaced by zero or a default.
• The wrong units, such as kilograms typed where the settings expect pounds.
• A default box far larger or smaller than the products it is applied to.
• Imported product lists from a supplier that never included shipping details.
• Variants without their own weights, so a large size ships as a small one.
• Packaging left out, so the box, padding and manual weigh nothing.

The second is the easiest to miss, because every weight looks reasonable on screen. A shop set to pounds and fed kilograms misquotes every order.

Weight and size both count

Carriers commonly charge for the larger of two figures: the parcel's actual weight, and a weight worked out from its length, width and height.

That is how socks reach $40. Sent as the stockroom's largest box, they were priced by the box, not by what was in it.

It is also why weights alone are not enough. A lampshade or a pillow needs its box size too, or it is quoted as if it were small and dense.

Boxes the cart can use

Most carts can hold a list of the boxes you really ship in, with their measurements and their own weight, and fit each order into one before asking for a price.

Some quote every item as its own parcel unless told otherwise. Six small items then cost six parcels, a price nobody at the shop would charge.

Products that always travel in their own carton, such as a boxed appliance or a long fixture, should be set to ship separately.

A worked example

An electrical wholesaler with a trade counter in an industrial park also sells online to contractors and homeowners: fixtures, breakers, connectors, boxes, cable by the reel and lamps.

Its online shop was built two years ago from a supplier's spreadsheet. Hundreds of products had no weight, the rest were in pounds while the shop expected kilograms, and no boxes were set up.

The counter manager noticed when a reel of cable that takes two people to lift went out on a light parcel's quote, while a bag of connectors was charged like a light fixture.

Staff weighed and measured each product as it ships, corrected the units, set up five standard boxes, and marked fixtures and reels to travel in their own cartons.

Reels over the carrier's parcel limits now say pickup or freight quote. A weight and dimensions are required before anyone can save a new product.

Staff then ran a dozen typical orders through the cart to four postal codes and checked each against the carrier's own calculator. The quotes now rest on the facts the shipping desk uses.

Testing typical baskets

Pick ten or so orders that represent the shop: a single light item, a single heavy one, a bulky one, a mixed basket and the largest order of a normal month.

Run each through the cart to several postal codes, near and far, including a rural one. Enter the same boxes and weights in the carrier's own rate calculator and compare.

Where they differ, the cause is usually on the list above. Fix it, test again, and keep the list of test orders for the next change.

Products the carrier will not take

Every carrier sets limits on weight and length for ordinary parcels. Beyond them the cart may show no rate, an error, or a price unrelated to reality.

Mark those products for pickup or a freight quote, and state it on the product page, so the shopper knows before reaching the cart.

Keeping the numbers right

New products are where the blanks creep back in. Make weight and dimensions required fields, and once a month sort the list by weight to catch zeros.

When the carrier changes how it charges for size, run the saved test orders again. A default box that was harmless last year can become expensive overnight.

The counter-case

A shop selling a few similar products that all fit one box may be better served by a flat rate or a simple table by region.

The weights still matter there. A flat rate is set from what parcels cost to send, and that is only known when the shop knows what its parcels weigh.

Live rates earn their keep in a catalogue of varied sizes, and a shop that grows into one will be glad the weights were entered from the start.

Real weights behind every quote

1. Export the product list with its weights and sizes.
2. Sort by weight to find blanks and zeros.
3. Check which units the shop's settings expect.
4. Weigh and measure each product as it ships.
5. Set up the boxes you really use.
6. Test typical orders against the carrier's calculator.
7. Require a weight and size for every new product.

Step six catches what the others miss. A cart can hold correct weights and still quote badly because of how it packs boxes, and only a side-by-side test shows it.

A shipping quote that looks wrong is one reason shoppers abandon a checkout; an empty promo code box is another, and the coupon code box that sends shoppers searching explains how to keep it from sending them away.

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