USPS Commercial Rates

[jackson4tube]

Hi There,

I am trying to setup my wife's website to use USPS shipping and to print USPS labels.
I've got all that to work, after 3 weeks of fighting with USPS....

Now I can't get it to show the "Commercial Rates".   It only shows Retail Rates.

My wife has a USPS business account and we need to use the Commercial Rates.

There is no option in the included USPS extension to select Commercial Rates.

I was frustrated about this today and found that there is another USPS extension on the marketplace for $30.  I purchased it, got it working, but It does NOT print labels.  So I have wasted $30.

I need to get the standard USPS extension to use the Commercial Rates.

How can I do this?

Thank you so much!!

Craig

[Basara]

Hello.
What is your AbanteCart version?

[jackson4tube]

V1.4.4

[Basara]

Hello Craig,

In AbanteCart 1.4.4, USPS rates come directly from the USPS API based on the configured Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, and Shipper Address. USPS decides which rates to return for that account and address.

Why do you believe the returned rates are incorrect? Did you contact USPS support?

[Heemet]

Hello Basara,

If you ship via PayPal, the USPS rates are commercial rates.  However, the default USPS extension in AbanteCart returns retail rates, which are higher.  Thus, if a customer checks-out and selects a USPS shipping option, he will be overcharged at the retail rate.

It appears that the USPS API allows for the API call to request commercial rates.  See here:
https://github.com/USPS/api-examples

The field is "priceType": "COMMERCIAL"

It seems that this would be an easy change in the USPS extension in AbanteCart, but I can't figure out where to set this field.

Thanks,
Peter

[abolabo]

Hello Basara,

If you ship via PayPal, the USPS rates are commercial rates.  However, the default USPS extension in AbanteCart returns retail rates, which are higher.  Thus, if a customer checks-out and selects a USPS shipping option, he will be overcharged at the retail rate.

It appears that the USPS API allows for the API call to request commercial rates.  See here:
https://github.com/USPS/api-examples

The field is "priceType": "COMMERCIAL"

It seems that this would be an easy change in the USPS extension in AbanteCart, but I can't figure out where to set this field.

Thanks,
Peter

please change manually file (via cPanel filemanager)
public_html/extensions/usps/storefront/model/extension/usps.php

See lines 514 and 545.

Please let us know about result.

[Heemet]

Hello Basara,

If you ship via PayPal, the USPS rates are commercial rates.  However, the default USPS extension in AbanteCart returns retail rates, which are higher.  Thus, if a customer checks-out and selects a USPS shipping option, he will be overcharged at the retail rate.

It appears that the USPS API allows for the API call to request commercial rates.  See here:
https://github.com/USPS/api-examples

The field is "priceType": "COMMERCIAL"

It seems that this would be an easy change in the USPS extension in AbanteCart, but I can't figure out where to set this field.

Thanks,
Peter

please change manually file (via cPanel filemanager)
public_html/extensions/usps/storefront/model/extension/usps.php

See lines 514 and 545.

Please let us know about result.

Hi adolabo,

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of where the rate type is set in rate query.  I made the change to 'priceType'                   => 'COMMERCIAL' and now I'm seeing appropriate rates.  Thank you!

One idea for a change to the USPS extension would be to provide a toggle in the extension interface to allow the user to select whether commercial rates are used by the store.

Regards,
Peter