Case Study

Packaging Products - Made-to-Measure Boxes With Live Freight at Checkout

ShopifyFreight IntegrationeCommerce

Company

Packaging Products (Lower Hutt, Wellington)

Store

Custom Box NZ, on Shopify

Connected Systems

Shopify, Mainfreight, GoSweetSpot, production portal

What We Built

• Box designer pricing from the production engine
• Server-side checkout pricing
• Live courier and pallet freight rates
• Paid orders sent to production as jobs

Client Overview

Packaging Products makes corrugated boxes to order in five styles and several board grades. Alongside quoting through the sales team, it sells made-to-measure boxes direct through its Custom Box online store, where a customer can design a box and pay for it without waiting on a quote.

The Challenge

Selling a product that does not exist until it is ordered is hard to do online. Every box has a different price, and a different shipping size and weight. A flat shipping table cannot tell a handful of small mailer boxes from a pallet of large cartons, and Shopify's standard shipping has no idea how big a custom box is.

What the store needed:

Prices that match the factory: the online price should be the price the production team would quote
Prices that cannot be tampered with: the amount charged has to be worked out on the server, not trusted from the browser
Freight that fits the order: courier for small orders, pallet freight for big ones, priced on the real dimensions
No re-keying: a paid order should reach production with its full specification

The Solution

Automate AI connected the Shopify store to the same AWS backend that runs Packaging Products' production portal. The box designer on the product page prices each configuration through the portal's box pricing engine, and at checkout the cart is re-priced on the server before a Shopify order is created. A separate freight service, registered with Shopify as a carrier service, works out the shipping rate for every cart in real time.

How It Works

From box designer to factory floor

Design the box

The customer picks a box style and board grade, enters the dimensions and quantity, and can save the configuration to come back to.

Price it

The price comes from the same box pricing engine the production team quotes with, and is worked out again on the server at checkout.

Quote the freight

At checkout, Shopify asks our freight service for a rate based on the real size and weight of the boxes and the delivery address.

Make it

Once paid, the order is pulled into the production portal as a job, matched to the customer, with every box spec attached.

Freight

Shipping priced on what is actually in the box

Freight from the box itself

Volume and weight are calculated from each box's style, dimensions, flute, quantity and lid, so the rate reflects what is actually being shipped.

Courier or pallet, automatically

Small, light orders go by courier through GoSweetSpot using flat-packed carton sizes. Larger orders are quoted as Mainfreight pallet freight.

The cheapest courier wins

When several couriers return a rate, the cheapest available option is offered, so customers are not pushed onto a premium service.

One rate for mixed carts

A cart with custom boxes and regular stock items shows a single split-delivery rate covering both, so nothing ships under-charged.

Tuned Against Real Orders

Freight logic only proves itself on real carts, so it has been adjusted as orders came through. The board weights and box formulas were checked line by line against the team's own freight spreadsheet. Small boxes were moved to courier with accurate carton sizes instead of being quoted as pallets. Pallet rate requests now carry the current date, so the carrier applies its current fuel adjustment. And if a courier quote ever fails, small boxes fall back to a pallet quote, so the checkout always has a rate to offer.

Customers see a real freight price at checkout - based on their boxes and their address
The online price matches the factory price - one pricing engine serves the store and the portal
Paid orders arrive as production jobs - with the box specs attached, ready to schedule
Mixed carts are handled in one go - boxes and stock items share a single combined rate

Key Takeaways

Custom products can sell online: if the pricing rules can be written down, they can run in a checkout
Price once, use everywhere: one engine for the sales team and the store keeps them from drifting apart
Freight is part of the price: live carrier rates beat a flat table that is wrong for most orders
Always return something: a fallback rate is better than a checkout that cannot finish

Related Service

Systems Integration

Packaging Products' store, freight carriers and production portal now share one flow from checkout to factory. We connect the systems your business already runs on.

Explore Systems Integration

Selling something that is made to order?

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