I am having a very difficult time finding some clear answers on using dimensional weight in Magento 2. Dimensional weight is generally an option with different shipping providers but all of the articles I have found online imply that dimensional weight is just default in Magento 2 when using a major shipping provider. Every article also sounds like it has just been optimized for SEO but are not actually useful because they don't fully make sense. Here are several examples:
https://bsscommerce.com/blog/how-to-set-up-shipping-methods-in-magento-2-part-2/
Four main carriers supported in Magento 2 Dimensional Weight shipping
method includes:
...
Although the configuration of each carrier may differ, all shipping
service providers require you to have a shipping account which provides
you with essential information like user ID, gateway URL to complete
the setup of each shipping method.
Because these 4 shipping methods share some major similarities, I will
only focus on the configuration of United Parcel Service.
The article goes on to not mention how to actually enable or configure dimensional weight. Other similar articles:
https://www.mconnectmedia.com/blog/magento-2-dimensional-weight-shipping-method-part-4/
https://amasty.com/knowledge-base/how-to-configure-magento-2-shipping-methods
There is a guide for Dimensional Weight from Magento directly but it is for 1.9.x and states that it is not supported and you need to use a third party service/module (http://docs.magento.com/m1/ce/user_guide/shipping/weight-dimensional.html).
Let's assume that is supported (even though I have not seen hard evidence of it), how could dimensional weight be supported with dimensions being part of the Magento product set up. We could set custom attributes to products but width, length and height would need to be present for a true dimensional weight to be calculated.
I'm basically just looking for a hard yes or no and to be pointed in the direction of a solution if there is one.
Thank you!
Best Answer
I am also having a very difficult time understanding this but as far as I am aware of, there is NO actual support of dimensional weight on as of Magento 2.2.6. Although they have added the default Length, Width, and High but it is probably for Magento's own shipping called Mangento Shipping and unfortunately it does come with a high monthly subscription, just like the only promising third party extension called "ShipperHQ" and thus I was not able to test them.
I have researched so many extensions in hope of finding ones that would provide accurate live rate with dimensional weight included in the calculation but there is just simply none. As for a store that charges shipping, it is very difficult to provide an accurate shipping estimate for customer.
While some have suggested to put the calculated dimensional weight as the "weight" in the backend, while it will somewhat works but it is not ideal and honestly not a long term solution.