LTL freight, drums, totes, and chemical hazmat, how does Magento route them?
This is the single most common reason jan/san distributors abandon Shopify and migrate to Magento. Shopify shipping calculators choke on the combination of weight, hazmat class, packaging-group, lift-gate, residential-delivery, and limited-access fees that LTL chemical shipments require.
The Magento data model per SKU:
- Freight class (NMFC 50-500), determines LTL rate. Drums are typically class 65; totes class 70-85.
- UN number + packaging group (UN1760 / PG II), required on the bill of lading and shipping label.
- Hazmat class, class 3 (flammable liquids, e.g. alcohol-based sanitisers), class 8 (corrosives, e.g. bleach concentrate), class 9 (miscellaneous, e.g. lithium batteries in PPE).
- ORM-D / Limited Quantity, flag for ground-only consumer chemicals.
- Pallet quantity, how many drums fit on a pallet for freight optimisation.
Magento MSI source-selection routes the order to the warehouse that can ship the hazmat-class SKU (not all warehouses are licensed). The shipping API integration (SAIA, Old Dominion, XPO, FedEx Freight, ABF, YRC, Estes) returns a rate quote with the hazmat surcharge baked in. Lift-gate, residential, and limited-access fees auto-add based on the destination ZIP profile.
Pallet quantity discounts auto-tier: 1 drum at $X, 4 drums at $X − 12%, full pallet at $X − 18%. Customers see the next-tier savings on the cart page so they self-upsell.
No air-shipping of flammables. The system blocks any class-3 SKU from FedEx Air / UPS Air at the cart level with a clear message.