4 replies to this topic

[NodsDorf]

Took a quick glance and didn't see anything in the shipping add-ons. We use UPS only and I thought until now that having dynamic rates would return a no rate for a PO box, but it appears that they actually only check city/zip to calculate the rate. I was informed by customer service this is starting to become an issue.

Has anybody installed or done some modifications to force customers from using PO Boxes?

[dailce]

NodsDorf, on 19 July 2011, 16:30, said:

Took a quick glance and didn't see anything in the shipping add-ons. We use UPS only and I thought until now that having dynamic rates would return a no rate for a PO box, but it appears that they actually only check city/zip to calculate the rate. I was informed by customer service this is starting to become an issue.

Has anybody installed or done some modifications to force customers from using PO Boxes?

Easy way is to place a small note under or above the shipping rates "We will NOT ship to PO boxes".

[NodsDorf]

dailce, on 19 July 2011, 18:42, said:

Easy way is to place a small note under or above the shipping rates "We will NOT ship to PO boxes".

Can do that, but would rather force them to fix the issue as soon as it is noticed.

Was hoping there was something already available. Otherwise I can try and write a function to check for it myself.

[Jack_mcs]

This question has been asked for years but, as far as I know, nothing has been written for it. The problem is that there isn't an easy way to determine if the address is a PO Box. Many rural areas use addresses like 123 Street Box 23, or something like that, and it is a legitimate address that UPS will ship to. Another customer might enter the address as Box 23, meaning it is a PO Box, and UPS won't ship to it. So the question is how do you write code that will accept the one address and not the other? I think the closest you could do would be to scan the entered shipping address for "Box" and then popup a warning when the continue button is clicked to say something like, "If your shipping address is a PO Box, your order will not ship." Hopefully, if the address was to a O Box, the customer will either change it or stop at that point. If they continue, you will just have to catch it in admin. To help with that, you could install my Additional Order Info addon and change the code slightly so it highlights address with "Box" in the shipping address. You can do that without the addon, of course, but the code is mostly already written so it may be quicker.

[NodsDorf]

Thanks Jack, I believe you're right. I've seen some javascript examples of people trying to catch them but in the end either one will slip through by forgoing proper address formatting or somebody will get rejected when they shouldn't.

Think I'll follow your advise and just put a check for language then a popup asking if its a PO box.