X-Cart forums

[GreatLakesVacuum]

Originally Posted by tony_sologubov

That is why you can set up a box 5x5x5 dimensions for a pen product and specify that it can contain up to 30 pens.

This way, when it comes to shipping calculation, only one box will be passed to shipping system side no matter whether you order 1 pen or 30 pens.

And if you do that with markers too...

Then customer orders 1 pen, and 1 marker and gets shipping estimate for 2 boxes!

This new way does NOT work. It has to be smarter than XC4. This is no good at all for people selling products that don't weigh much. I have 2 box sizes and can't tell the system that some of my products need the bigger box because then if they order 1 "big" item and 1 "small" item, they get charged for 2 boxes even though the small item could fit in the big box with the big item.

This is not good enough!

[tony_sologubov]

Yes, I agree with you GreatLakesVacuum.

As I have said earlier (http://forum.x-cart.com/showpost.php?p=378443&postcount=11), we do want to add a support of routine that shipping calculator will calculate the final size of the package itself (of course, if shipping calculator supports it). But we are not going to add X-Cart 4 routine, because its packing algorithm is wrong and it cannot be easily solved. Moreover, it is shipping calculator's job to calculate best package size.

That is why our position is:
1) Give easy algorithm of packing goods. The current version can be improved, but not dramatically. We can add a support of product classes, so pen/marker problem will be solved.
2) Give a way to use a complex algorithm of packing goods provided by shipping calculator.

If you want to see either option faster, please register such idea and upvote it in our ideas tracker (ideas.x-cart.com).

Tony.