Laravel parse request into Eloquent model with relations

Im developing a Laravel API that will host and manage the data for a mobile application. The application that I am writing will make AJAX requests and send over JSON data to the Laravel controller.

This works fine for a basic model however I am unable to get this working for nested models. Ill explain:

So I have the following model structure:

Shelf ---- Has Many ----> Boxes ---- Has Many ----> Products

Shelf:

class Shelf extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'location'];

    public function boxes()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('App\Box');
    }
}

Box:

class Box extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'size', 'label'];

    public function shelf()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('App\Shelf');
    }

    public function products()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('App\Product');
    }
}

Product:

class Product extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'price', 'quantity'];

    public function box()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('App\Box');
    }
}

All my models have validation checking before anything is saved.

I send the following request to my Laravel controller:

"Shelf": {
  "name":"Shelf 1",
  "location":"LOC1"
  "boxes":[{
    "name":"box 1",
    "size": 130,
    "label": "B1",
    "products":[
      {"name":"Prod1","price":23.00,"quantity":5},
      {"name":"Prod2","price":13.00,"quantity":2}
    ]
  }, {
    "name":"box 2",
    "size": 130,
    "label": "B2",
    "products":[
      {"name":"Prod3","price":3.00,"quantity":15},
      {"name":"Prod4","price":7.00,"quantity":8}
    ]
  }, {
    "name":"box 3",
    "size": 160,
    "label": "B3",
    "products":[
      {"name":"Prod5","price":103.00,"quantity":9},
      {"name":"Prod6","price":83.00,"quantity":1}
    ]
  }]
}

When I receive the above data in my Laravel controller i use:

$request->all()

To get all of the data however this will only save the Shelf and not any of the relationships. Is there a common way (or library) I can use to parse the JSON within the Laravel controller?

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