1. Purpose
Have the right box, its dimensions, and its weight applied to every order automatically, instead of being typed in at the pack bench.
2. Scope
Building an order automation from scratch that picks a packaging based on what is on the order. Copying an automation you already have onto another organization is a different job, covered by SWI-011.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Brand owner | Decides which products map to which box, and supplies the naming patterns the rule matches on. |
Account manager | Builds the automation and sets its priority alongside anything already running. |
Warehouse | Confirms the box the automation picks is the one actually used at the bench. |
4. When you need this
Products come in a fixed set of sizes and each size has its own box.
Product weights are blank or zero, so orders rate at the carrier minimum.
The pack bench is typing dimensions by hand on every order.
A brand is setting up before go-live and wants boxes right from the first order.
5. Key concept: choosing the box is the dimensions rule
What people assume | What actually happens |
|---|---|
One rule sets the weight, a second sets the dimensions. | One rule does both. Selecting a packaging applies that packaging's dimensions to the package and adds its weight on top of the item weights. |
The first rule that matches wins. | The last one does. Rules run top to bottom and a later one overwrites an earlier one on the same setting, so the order you put them in is what decides a mixed order. |
Products with no weight get flagged. | Nothing warns you. An item with a blank or zero weight adds nothing, and if no box rule matches, the order rates at a one ounce minimum in whichever box the system picks. |
An automation in the list is doing something. | Not necessarily. One saved with no rules on it still lists as active and does nothing at all. |
6. Procedure
Confirm the boxes already exist as packagings with dimensions and weight filled in. A box with no dimensions gives you nothing even when the rule fires.
Check how the products are named. A catalog fed by more than one sales channel usually carries more than one naming pattern for the same size.
Go to Automations and click Create Order Automation, or open the empty draft if one is already there.
Name it for the whole job rather than one size, such as Size to box.
Add a rule and set its match dropdown to any (OR).
Add one condition for each way that size appears. For a 12 inch product that is usually three: Any line item SKU starts with 12-, Any line item product name contains 12 inch, and Any line item product name contains 12-inch.
Set the action to Select packaging and choose the box for that size.
Repeat steps 5 to 7 for every remaining size, smallest at the top and largest at the bottom.
Add one final rule, leave its conditions empty, and turn on its Default toggle. Point it at the sensible fallback box.
Click Test Function against a real order of each size, then against one that should match nothing, and confirm you get the fallback.
Save.
7. Verification
The automation appears in the list with no Draft badge on it.
Test Function returns the right box per size, and the fallback for anything outside them.
The next real order that matches picks it up. Orders already in the system pick it up on their next refresh or resync.
8. Constraints and caveats
An automation saved with no rules still lists as active and does nothing, with no warning. If a rule is not behaving, open it and confirm the conditions are actually there before looking anywhere else.
Conditions read any line item, so an order holding two sizes matches both rules and the last one wins. Ordering smallest to largest means the bigger box wins, which is the safer failure. An order that genuinely needs two boxes is a packing job, not an automation.
The rule stores the box by name. Renaming the packaging later quietly breaks it, with no error.
Anything outside the size rules falls to the default. Without a default rule the system picks a box for you and does not say which.
Editing the rule does not fix past orders. They pick the change up on their next refresh or resync.
9. Worked example
A brand onboarding through a 3PL sells one product line in seven sizes, holds a box preset for each size, and asked for the presets to be applied automatically.
Observation | Reading |
|---|---|
Every one of roughly 7,700 products has a blank or zero weight. | Without a box rule every order rates at the one ounce minimum. The preset carries the real weight, so selecting it fixes weight and dimensions together. |
An automation named after a single size already existed with no rules on it. | Saved empty, listed as active, doing nothing. Section 8, first bullet. Rebuilt in place rather than replaced. |
Size appears three ways: a 12-12 prefix in the SKU, 12 inches in the variant name, and 12-Inch in the marketplace listing title. | One condition per pattern, joined with any (OR). The SKU alone covered about 6,400 of 7,700. All three together covered about 7,000. |
Around 650 products match no size rule, mostly the two largest sizes and accessory items. | A default rule at the bottom catches those rather than leaving the box to chance. |
Check how much of the catalog a condition actually matches before trusting it. A rule that looks right and covers most of it fails quietly on the rest, and the bench finds out first.
10. Related documents
SWI-011 — Copy an Order Automation to Another Organization
SWI-013 — Upload Product Bundles from a CSV