Abstract: Methods and systems are described for selecting and utilizing an assortment of cartons for shipping items from a facility location are disclosed. A method includes receiving a shipment history for a facility location, and attributes of candidate cartons. For each shipment in the shipment history, a subset of the candidate cartons that can contain the one or more items in each shipment is determined. A cost of shipping is determined for each shipment in each of the possible cartons. An optimal assortment of cartons is selected from the possible cartons based on a cost of shipping and a number of carton types to be included in the assortment.