Custom Carton Build / Inserts (Shipper)

How FLEXE handles custom carton builds and inserts when packing and shipping.

IN THIS TOPIC

• Terminology 
• Custom Cartons
• Custom Carton Inserts
• Using Custom Carton Builds & Inserts

Terminology

Custom Carton: Any custom shipping box. This ranges from small parcel to heavy duty boxes.

Corrugate: The ridged or folded cardboard that shipping boxes are made of.

Item Master: A communal list of your inventory’s properties such as SKU, Description, Grouping, Stored Pallets, Available and/or Damaged Cartons or Eaches.

Pricing Lever: A fee type combined with a price. A fee type denotes a kind of work, such as building a custom carton, and a price denotes how much a single unit of that work costs.

SOP: Standard Operating Procedure

Custom Cartons Builds

What is a Custom Carton Build?

A custom carton is any specialized carton, corrugate, or mailer your item needs to ship in. For example, these are considered standard shipping cartons:

Where as custom cartons may look something like this (or be even more complex):

The difference comes down to how much effort is being put into building these for shipping. When a carton build requires more work than the 4 standard walls, it falls into “custom” territory. While FLEXE is capable of building either for you, different pricing levers may apply based on your needs. 

Custom Inserts

What is a Custom Insert?

A custom insert can range anywhere from adding tissue paper to including a sheet of stickers to a customized note. Custom inserts can be categorized in these ways:

1. An insert that can be added to a carton before an order from your customer comes in.

2. An insert that can be added as a SKU, and that is picked as part of order fulfillment (like a stocking stuffer)

3. An insert can be a temporary addition to your inventory as a promotional item for the week, month, or until your extra inventory runs out.

Different pricing levers may apply depending on your needs.

Working Together

How Do Custom Carton Build and Inserts Work Together?

All items you plan to ship to your customers should be set up in the FLEXE Item Master and shipped to the warehouse in a PO Receipt before the warehouse can start to build. Building the custom carton can happen at 1 of 2 times:

Pre-built custom cartons/inserts 

1. A new SKU is created by the shipper for a pre-built carton (with inserts).
2. The warehouse builds these custom cartons with inserts, and stores them separately in the warehouse.
3. An order comes in with what needs to be fulfilled along with the pre-built carton SKU.
4. The warehouse picks the pre-built custom carton along with the rest of the order for fulfillment.  

Building custom cartons/inserts after an order is placed:

1. An order comes in with what needs to be fulfilled along with the components of what is needed for the custom carton build.
2. everything needing to be fulfilled and builds each carton and packs all ordered items into it before shipping.
   • The warehouse will use your custom carton build SOP to complete.

Whatever you decide to do, FLEXE partners with you to craft the best SOP that meets your needs. Reach out to your Flexe Logistics Analyst, or contact [e-mail] if you need more information.