USPS on September 1st 2017  has changed their ‘First-Class Mail Parcel” Service to “First-Class Package Service – Retail”.

There are other changes as well, see Pitney Bowes for further details.

ShipperHQ Customers

Any customers using ShipperHQ will see no disruption of service.

Other eCommerce Users

For those customers NOT using ShipperHQ please see following notes re each platform:

Magento 1.x

NO Change is required for ShipperHQ Customers.

If you are using WebShopApps Dimensional Shipping and in your year’s support then contact our support for an update. Outside of this you will need to follow the instructions below and update the USPS.php file in the extension. All other extension users will need to follow the advice below.

You will need to alter the USPS implementation to use the new Shipping Method Name. Please note: We do not recommend you update the core files directly, so you should follow procedure to create a patch here (we would hope Magento Inc have released a patch already as this is service affecting). The following comments show you where the changes are.

Look for the file app/code/core/Mage/Usa/Model/Shipping/Carrier/Usps.php

Search for ‘method_to_code’.  You will see like following:

Magento 1 USPS API Change

Update to replace ‘First-Class Mail Parcel’ with ‘First-Class Package Service – Retail’ (this is a single dash). Its extremely important you spell this exactly as is else it will not be able to match.

Magento USPS after API Change

Optionally you can update the Shipping method name used, search for ‘0_FCP’ and you will see:

USPS Shipping Method Name Update

In app/code/core/Mage/Usa/etc/config.xml replace any occurrence of’First-Class Mail Parcel’ with ‘First-Class Package Service – Retail’.

In the Magento Admin panel you will need to refresh your shipping methods and select this new ‘Allowed Method’, else it still won’t display.

Magento 2.x

NO Change is required for ShipperHQ Customers.

The changes above apply, the directory locations are just different. See under vendor/magento/module-usps/Model/Usps.php.  

Shopify

We have confirmed that First-Class Package Rates are showing (updated Sept 3rd).

BigCommerce

Please contact your BigCommerce Rep if you are no longer seeing the correct USPS First-Class Mail Parcel(Package) Rates. In our testing we are able to see First-Class Rates, though not able to ascertain which.

About ShipperHQ

ShipperHQ is a storefront shipping management solution which gives you incredible flexibility in managing your shipping rates. Even for customers using Free Shipping ShipperHQ is a must, we include capabilities around Time in Transit, Pickup from Store, Address Validation, Multi-Warehouse, etc etc.  We also keep upto date with the APIs and worry about this stuff so you don’t have to ;).  We offer free migration services for WebShopApps customers. We are available on BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento 1&2, and WooCommerce.