What a Pack Template Is
A pack template tells WareSquared "when we sell N units of this product, this is how they physically ship." Think of it as the recipe between "the catalog SKU" and "the box that gets a label."
Common cases:
- Vinyl roll: one product = one tube box at 22″ × 4″ × 4″, 8 oz empty weight
- T-shirts: 1–3 per poly mailer; 4–12 per dim-weight-bound poly mailer; 13+ in a small box
- Pills / supplements: 6 bottles per case pack
- Cable: one spool per kraft box; bundle of 4 spools per shipping carton
Why It Matters
Without pack templates, your shipping cost estimator falls back to the bounding box of all the items in the order, padded by 20%. That works but it's wrong often enough to matter on tight margins. With pack templates, the calculator picks the right box per product and gives carriers accurate dimensions.
Also useful for: pick-list accuracy ("pick 12 = 2 cases of 6, not 12 loose items"), low-stock alerts at the right cadence ("low when fewer than 6 cases left, not 36 units").
Setting One Up
Settings → Pack Templates → + New Pack Template
Each template needs:
- Name — internal label ("Vinyl tube 20″", "Poly mailer M", "Spool case x4")
- Variant Dimension Template — links the pack to a variant family (e.g. only vinyl-roll products can use the vinyl-tube template). Defined in Settings → Variant Dimensions first.
- Distribution — JSON map describing how units split across variant axes. For a simple "X units per pack", set total_units directly.
Using Templates
Once a pack template is defined for a variant family, products in that family automatically use it for:
- Shipping cost estimates — the ShippingParcelCalculator reads the template's outer dimensions + empty weight, adds the product's per-unit weight, and asks Shippo for rates
- Pick list rendering — quantities show as cases + loose instead of raw counts
- Receiving — POs can be received in case-pack units, auto-converted to base units on inventory
Common Mistakes
- Defining a pack template before the variant dimension template exists. Pack templates depend on dimension templates — create the dimensions first.
- One pack template for all variants. If your 20″ rolls ship in a different tube than your 60″ rolls, create one template per size. The auto-assign picks the right one based on the variant dimensions.
- Forgetting empty weight. A "Tube box, 22×4×4, weight 0" looks fine on screen but understates carrier weight by the tube itself. Carriers charge on actual weight + dim weight, so missing the tube weight costs real dollars.
Tip: If you're new to pack templates, configure them for your top 10 SKUs first — those drive 80%+ of your shipping spend. The long tail can use bounding-box fallback until you get around to them.
See also: Variants: Family, Finish, Color, and Size, Pick, Pack, Ship Process