Packaging in the shopping cart

[Craig Ambrose]

Hello,

I am using the ShoppingCart object to add products from the web site and I was wondering if there is any logic to determine how many boxes the contents of the shopping cart will require. When I add a product to the shopping cart using the ShoppingCartEvents.addToCart() java method, I see that some CartShipInfo objects get created and they create a single "package". I don't want the customer to have to be concerned with wether the shipping will require multiple boxes and I'm not trying to ship some of the cart contents to one address and some to another. So, it isn't something that would require customer input.

I was hoping to use some of the UOM definitions that I have for the product, either weight or height and width dimensions to determine which of the defined ShipmentBoxType entities should be used and then wether the order should be broken up into multiple boxes. I would also leverage this logic in doing the packing phase of the order.

To my logic the shipping estimates would need to know how many boxes are being shipped before the shipping charges are calculated and the payment reviewed and processed. Is this something that exists in ofbiz? Or do I need to specify the shipment groups to the shopping cart explicitly?

Thanks

-craig

[Matt Warnock]

Can't tell you what OFBiz offers here, if anything, but the problem
seems more difficult than you have described.  Yes, weight, height and
width will give you the volume, but that volume will be different for
different items, at least for most people.  A long skinny item may
determine the size of box required, while "standard" items (if such
exist for your operation) may suggest a different sized box.  The
problem requires shape-fitting, not just volume-fitting, at least for
most people.

With our products, for example, we have 120, 60, and 30 count bottles of
capsules, and one product in a 2 oz/60 ml dropper bottle.  All of these
items also come in 12-count cases, which are different sizes.  If we
standardized the shipping boxes, we would have to choose the largest
(120 count) 12-pack case, which would cause a 2-oz liquid or 30-count
bottle to rattle around a LOT, and might cause label wear or other
issues.  And I suspect our products are a good deal more homogeneous in
size than those of most folks out there.  Of course, we do also have
other items we ship (brochures, counter or floor displays, etc) that
would throw the whole thing off.

Using volumes, in my experience, might get you an *estimate* of how many
boxes, assuming you only have one box size, or a *suggestion* of what
box size to use, but in my experience, this area is more heuristics than
algorithms, and depends a lot on the nature of what you are shipping.
If there is a shape-fitting algorithm to determine the optimum shipping
box size or number of boxes for arbitrary objects, I haven't seen it,
and I have looked (a bit).  There is pallet stacking software (for
example) that hits the general area, but it assumes consistent-sized
cases on a pallet.

On the more basic (volume-fitting) end, while I imagine OFBiz could be
easily tweaked a bit to do this math, I doubt it is built-in, since it
is of limited utility for shape-fitting, and heuristics would be
completely different for everyone.

Good luck.

On Wed, 2010-03-10 at 05:56 +0000, Craig Ambrose wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am using the ShoppingCart object to add products from the web site
>  and I was wondering if there is any logic to determine how many boxes
>  the contents of the shopping cart will require. When I add a product
>  to the shopping cart using the ShoppingCartEvents.addToCart() java
>  method, I see that some CartShipInfo objects get created and they
>  create a single "package". I don't want the customer to have to be
>  concerned with wether the shipping will require multiple boxes and I'm
>  not trying to ship some of the cart contents to one address and some
>  to another. So, it isn't something that would require customer input.
>
> I was hoping to use some of the UOM definitions that I have for the
>  product, either weight or height and width dimensions to determine
>  which of the defined ShipmentBoxType entities should be used and then
>  wether the order should be broken up into multiple boxes. I would also
>  leverage this logic in doing the packing phase of the order.
>
> To my logic the shipping estimates would need to know how many boxes are being shipped before the shipping charges are calculated and the payment reviewed and processed. Is this something that exists in ofbiz? Or do I need to specify the shipment groups to the shopping cart explicitly?
>
> Thanks
>
> -craig

--
Matt Warnock <[hidden email]>
RidgeCrest Herbals, Inc.