Set up products
Assign each product a location, a carrier and the boxes it ships in, on the Products page.
Updated October 23, 2026
The Products page is where you tell Parcello how each product ships: where from, with which carrier and in which boxes. Parcello packs orders, quotes checkout rates and fills labels from these settings, so a product without a box can’t be packed.
Before you start
- Add your ship-from addresses on Locations. See Locations and dropship locations.
- Add your boxes on Boxes. See Boxes.
- Connect a carrier and choose a store default carrier on Carriers. See Connect UPS, Connect FedEx or Connect Shippo.
Which products appear
The table lists every variant that requires shipping in Shopify, one row per variant. Products marked as not physical in Shopify don’t appear and Parcello ignores them.
Parcello copies all your products from Shopify the first time you open the page. It runs in the background: the page opens right away with a “Loading your products from Shopify” banner, and the products appear when it finishes, which can take a minute for a large catalog. If you don’t open the page, Parcello copies them within a few hours anyway. After that it keeps them up to date as you create, edit and delete products in Shopify. If something is missing or out of date, click Sync Products at the top of the page. You’ll see a banner like “Synced 81 products (311 variants) in 2950ms.”
New variants are assigned to your default location automatically, with no box yet.
Set up a product
- Go to Products.
- Find the variant with the search box or the filters.
- In Ship From, pick the location it ships from.
- In Carrier, pick a carrier, or leave the store default.
- In Box 1, pick the box it ships in. Parcello fills in the content weight from the product’s Shopify weight.
- Check the weight and, if more than one unit fits in the box, set Max qty per box.
You’ll see Saving… and then Saved ✓ next to the variant name.
When changes save
- Lists and checkboxes save as soon as you change them.
- Typed fields (weights, quantities, messages) save when you click or tab out of the field.
- If a save fails, the row goes back to its last saved values and shows ✗ Retry. Hover over it to read the reason.
The columns
| Column | What it does |
|---|---|
| Product / Variant | Product and variant name, SKU and Shopify weight. Not configured means the variant has no location. |
| Ship From | The location the variant ships from. Items from different locations go in separate shipments. Choosing Select ship-from removes the variant’s settings, boxes included. |
| Carrier | The carrier for this variant’s labels. Store default (UPS) means it follows the store default you set on Carriers. The list has UPS, FedEx and Shippo, plus Estes (LTL freight) and FedEx Freight (LTL freight) on the Freight plan. See How Parcello picks the carrier and service. |
| Checkout Lead (Days / Message) | (Advanced plan.) How long the variant takes before it ships, for delivery dates at checkout. Also holds the No free shipping checkbox. See below. |
| Packing | My box rules packs with the boxes in the Box columns. Automatic (Operations plan) picks a box from the product’s packed size. |
| Multiple Boxes (Meaning) | What it means when a variant has more than one box. See below. |
| Box 1, Box 2, … | The boxes the variant uses, with content weight and Max qty per box. There’s always one empty Box column for adding another box. |
Box columns
Each Box column holds:
- The box. The list shows active boxes with their dimensions, like “Mailer (12×9×4)”.
- The content weight (the field marked lbs). The weight of one unit’s contents in this box, without the box. Parcello adds the box’s empty weight. When you pick Box 1, it’s filled in from the Shopify weight (“From Shopify product weight”). When you pick Box 2, it gets what’s left of the Shopify weight (“Remaining from Shopify weight”). Must be more than 0 and less than 100,000.
- Max qty per box. How many units fit in one box, 1 to 999. Blank or 0 becomes 1: each unit gets its own box. See Limit items per box, alternative boxes and carton packs.
- BOL description (Freight plan). A short description, up to 35 characters, printed on the Estes or FedEx Freight bill of lading for this box. Blank uses the product title. See Bills of lading and Estes pickups.
- Only when nothing else fits. Shown when Multiple Boxes (Meaning) is Alternative boxes. Parcello uses this box only when the units can’t be spread across the other boxes.
When the box has a Max weight on the Boxes page and one unit plus the empty box weighs more than it, the column warns: “One unit and the box weigh more than this box’s N lbs limit.” (For a carton pack that may ship in separate boxes, the warning is for one carton.) The unit still ships, alone in that box. See Box limits.
Boxes fill from left to right. To remove boxes, clear them from the right: clear the last box first. A variant can’t have an empty Box column before a filled one.
Multiple Boxes (Meaning)
- Unit split across boxes (the default): each unit ships in all of its boxes, one of each. A wheel with a wheel box and a stand box: 2 wheels ship in 4 boxes. See Ship one product in several boxes.
- Alternative boxes: the boxes are sizes to choose from, picked by quantity. This adds Cartons per unit for carton packs. See Limit items per box, alternative boxes and carton packs.
Checkout Lead and No free shipping
(Advanced plan.) Pick one of two modes per variant:
- Days: the number of business days the variant takes before it ships, 0 to 999. Checkout adds it to the delivery date.
- Message: no delivery date at checkout for carts with this variant. Your message shows instead, up to 200 characters, for example “10 business days after graphics approval”.
Switching modes keeps the value of the other mode, so you can switch back. See Delivery dates at checkout.
Tick No free shipping to keep a cart with this variant from getting free shipping at checkout. See Free shipping at checkout.
Packing
Automatic (Operations plan) asks for the packed size of one unit in inches and picks the box for you. Until the size is filled in, the variant shows Enter the packed size and packs with its box rules. See Automatic packing by size.
Search, filters and pages
- Search products… matches the product title, variant title or SKU.
- Filters: Configuration Status (Configured or Not Configured), Ship From, Carrier and Packing (My box rules, Automatic, Automatic, no size).
- The table shows 50 variants per page. The line above it reads, for example, “Showing 1–50 of 311 variants”.
The Carrier filter matches the value chosen on the row, so variants that follow the store default don’t match a carrier filter.
Other tools on the page
- Import, Export and Download Template work with Excel files. See Import and export product settings.
- The Box sharing tab (next to Box configuration) holds rules across products: shared boxes and ride-along items. See Shared boxes and ride-along items.
- Test a cart (Operations plan) packs a list of products and shows the boxes it would use, how full each is and its weight. Nothing is saved.
Notes and limits
- Changes apply to orders packed from then on. Orders already in Parcello keep their boxes until you click Recalculate Packages on the order (before any label is created).
- A variant with a location but no box is counted as configured, but Parcello can’t pack it: its items arrive on orders without a box, and checkout can’t rate a cart that contains it.
- Ride-along rules from the Box sharing tab don’t show in the Box columns.
Troubleshooting
A field with a problem shows a message under it, and the variant doesn’t save until you fix it:
| Message | Field | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Enter weight | Content weight is empty. | Enter the weight of one unit’s contents. |
| Must be > 0 and < 100,000 | Content weight is out of range. | Enter a weight above 0. |
| Whole number 1–999 | Max qty per box isn’t a whole number. | Enter a whole number. |
| Whole number 1–99 | Cartons per unit is out of range. | Enter 1 to 99. |
A change to a box in the middle doesn’t save. Clearing Box 1 or Box 2 while a later box is filled would leave a gap, so Parcello doesn’t save it. Clear the boxes after it first.
A box isn’t in the list. It’s inactive, or not added yet. Check the Boxes page.
“One unit and the box weigh more than this box’s N lbs limit.” The content weight in the column, plus the box’s empty weight, is over the box’s Max weight. Check the content weight, raise the limit on the Boxes page, or pick a box made for heavier items.
Orders arrive with items not in any box. The variant has no box. Pick one in Box 1, then click Recalculate Packages on the order.