USPS Shipping Rates

The platform can communicate with USPS in real time to provide customers and employees shipping rates and delivery times for each order.

Topics covered in this document:

OverviewHow to Set Up the Connection with USPSSpecifying the USPS Options Customers Can Select FromUSPS SettingsDrop Shipping Support

Overview

Here is a quick overview of the features available with the USPS integration for real-time shipping rates:

  • Customers can view shipping options, costs, and delivery times from USPS during checkout.

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  • Customers can preview the "estimated shipping cost" for their order on the cart page. The customer is prompted to enter their state and postal code, and then the least-expensive shipping option cost will be shown.

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  • Employees can select which USPS shipping options to allow customers to select.

  • Additional weight or costs can be added or subtracted from options to cover packaging or handling based on settings in the administrator.

  • The integration supports drop shipping. If items in the order come from multiple suppliers that are flagged as drop shippers, the order can be split into separate shipments when querying USPS, since the items in the order will be coming from multiple origins.

How to Set Up the Connection with USPS

Strictly speaking, you do not have to do anything special to connect with USPS for real-time rates, since the system will fall back to using its own USPS user ID. But it is a good idea to register for your own account in case there is ever an issue and so you can receive updates and notifications.

To get your own USPS user ID, register for their Web Tools API, starting here: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/welcome.htm. When registering, if it asks which services you'd like to sign up for, indicate you need the Rating service.

Upon registering, you should receive an email with your new username. This is the user ID you enter into the system for it to use when retrieving real time rates. Go to the USPS Settings screen and enter the value into the "API User ID" setting.

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Specifying the USPS Options Customers Can Select From

Employees can control which USPS shipping options are available for customers to choose from during checkout. To review the options, navigate to the main carriers list. Next to USPS, choose "Shipping Methods" option under the three-dots menu.

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The subsequent screen should show just the shipping methods corresponding to USPS. Check or uncheck the "Is Selectable By Customers" field to control whether or not customers can select it.

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The shipping method must be both active and "Selectable By Customers" to appear to customers during checkout. Apart from this, the method might not appear to customers if USPS does offer the option based on the weight, destination, or other parameters associated with the order. For example, international shipping methods will not appear if the order is for a domestic US address.

If you wish to hide a particular shipping method from customers, but still allow employees to use it, set the "Is Selectable By Customers" flag to false, but leave the "Is Active" flag on.

USPS Settings

A number of settings that control the requests to USPS for shipping rates are adjustable in the administrator. Visit the USPS Settings screen to adjust them.

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  • The "Extra Weight" setting tells the integration to add a certain amount of weight (in pounds) to each package sent in the API request, for example to cover packaging. This value is added to the total of the products' weights in the order. This setting is defaulted to one pound. USPS must have a weight in order to provide rates. If you have not defined any weights for your products, it will send "1" for each package's weight so customers see a response with options. We suggest you define each product's weight (in the Products area of the administrator) to get the most accurate rates from USPS, and use this setting to represent the typical weight of your packaging.

  • The "Extra Charge" value is a dollar value added to each shipping rate returned by USPS. This could be used to cover, for example, typical handling charges you wish to pass on to the customer that are not reflected in the USPS rates.

Drop Shipping Support

The UPS integration also supports drop shipping. For more details, visit the Drop Shipping page.