Issue with how FedEx module calculates rates

[dreese]

I have discovered an issue with the FedEx module and just wondering if anyone else has encountered the same and how you handled it?

Currently I only have FedEx Home Delivery enabled and various USPS rates. If a customer enters a company name the module does not return a FedEx rate (which depending on weight and distance can be significantly lower than USPS rates) because based solely on the company name field being populated, it determines it should be FedEx Ground. I sell to many home based businesses and these are not normally commercial address that would allow for FedEx Ground service.

I was given the following response by support:

The FedEx module decides whether to display Ground or Home Delivery based on the "Company" field. It does not check the address itself. For order xxxx, if FedEx Ground had been enabled they would have seen that option at checkout. If you want to change the way this module functions, our Professional Services team would need to get involved for custom-work.

So basically I could enable FedEx Ground but then the customer would pay the lower FedEx Ground rate even though the shipment does not qualify for this rate because its a residential address.

I have worked around this by hiding the company field and not enabling FedEx Ground. I use Shipstation so I know from there if I can ship FedEx Ground or not and then can refund the customer the excess shipping but I would prefer that they were able to get the correct shipping rate in the first place (who knows if this could make the difference on cart abandonment due to shipping cost or not). I would have expected that the module would be doing the address validation as part of the core module and not something I should have to pay for customization.

Thanks,
Debi Reese

[Brennan]

There is a setting under Store Settings -> Customer Fields where you can give the customer a checkbox to choose if the address is residential:

Automatic - Miva determines the rate type (residential/commercial) based on if the company field is populated
Prompt, Default to Residential - Always use Residential rates, but give the customer an option to select if the address is a commercial address
Prompt, Default to Commercial - Always use commercial rates, but give the customer the option to select if the address is a residential address

Keep in my adjusting these settings will overwrite your OCST page back to default. so if you have this page customized (which you likely do) you'll want to make this change is a dev store, grab the code it generates for the checkbox and the implement this into your live site.

[afiumano]

We are having this same issue. I have enabled the checkbox for Default to Residential but that is relying on the customer to correctly select or deselect the checkbox. Since the store does a lot of shipping to houses and businesses it would be great if this was a little more automated. Any modules that can tie into the FedEx API to detect if the address is residential or commercial?

[[email protected]]

Is there a way to import customers and change all their addresses to residential?

[[email protected]]

Never mind, I figured it out:
<Customer_Update login="doneza">
<ShipResidential>Yes</ShipResidential>
</Customer_Update>