DTC warehouse
Mixed soft and hard goods in one shipment
The problem
A single order combines compressible apparel, rigid accessories, and nested bundles. Packers choose cartons from habit—“this mailer usually works”—not from measured inner dimensions. Fill rates drift by shift. International dim-weight charges spike when teams default to the largest safe box.
Volume math cannot answer which orientation is legal, which mailer is excluded for fragile SKUs, or whether two items can share one carton without collision.
The solution in WiCartonize
- Product master — store length, width, height, weight, and flags like fragile or stackable per SKU.
- Box library — inner dimensions and max weight per mailer and carton.
- Packing profiles — bind the allowed box set per channel or warehouse lane.
- Rule engine — target items or categories; exclude boxes, limit orientations, and encode exceptions without WMS code changes.
- 3D pack + Inspector — collision-aware placement with coordinates packers can follow at the bench.
Typical workflow
Load products and boxes once. Attach rules to a profile. Call POST /api/v1/pack at wave release—or send inline dimensions when master data is not ready. Review utilization and leftovers in the Packing Inspector; tighten the box suite from pack history over time.