Volumetric weight

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Volumetric weight, also known as Dimensional weight is used to used by postal companies and other freight industries and courier services around the world to invoice for the actual space that a parcel, package or pallet takes up in a vehicle or storage area. A vehicle can quickly become full of bulky, lightweight articles long before it reaches it's capacity in weight which makes for inefficient use of space. For details see the ParcelForce site

The basic procedure for calculating volumetric weight is:

find the smallest cuboid box that your consignment will fit in.
find the volume of this notional box in cubic centimetres.
divide this by 6000: the answer is your volumetric weight in kilograms.

The result of this calculation is that if your consignment's density is one-sixth that of water or more, then its volumetric weight is less than the normal weight in kilograms, whereas if its density is less than one-sixth that of water, then its volumetric weight is more than its weight in kilograms. Transport and postal companies will charge based on the greater of these two calculations.

Increasingly, carriers, postal companies and warehouses are using dimensioners to calculate the volumetric weight of their parcels and pallets. Companies with large shipping departments use these systems to measure all outgoing items to ensure that they don't receive back charges from their carrier who invoices using the dimensional weight rate system.^[1]

Note that the formula for pallets is different—for pallets you divide by 3000, not 6000, so the volumetric weight is twice as much.