UPS 2 Day and UPS 3 Day Select not available when creating a shipping label

tb49913
Tourist
6 0 12

UPS 2 Day and 3 Day Select options are not available when I go to create a shipping label.  I have them selected and the customers can select them fine when going through the check out process, but they are nowhere to be found when I go to create the shipping label.  I've tried pretty much everything and am at a loss.  I've removed those options temporarily from our shipping options at checkout because of this and I'm afraid the overnight shipping rates are driving customers away.  Has anyone else had this problem?

Replies 15 (15)

tb49913
Tourist
6 0 12

I think I may have stumbled upon the reason in another forum post. It seems that if the UPS Ground shipping time is 2 days or less I'm losing the option for UPS 2 Day Air.  That may be fine for most but we ship perishable products and need that 2 day guaranteed delivery that only USP 2 Day Air gives.  Ground shipping is only an estimate, not a guarantee.

 

Please, if anyone knows how to force the option to show up regardless of shipping distance please let me know.  Also, it seems that the option is still being presented to customers at checkout.  Why would it appear to customers at checkout but not for me when I want to create a shipping label? 



 

Julie
Shopify Staff
1109 106 367

Hi, @tb49913!

 

Julie here from Shopify Support. 

 

You're correct; if a package can be sent faster (less than the 2 Day or 3 Day transit time for the rate in question) and cheaper using UPS Ground, the 2 Day or 3 Day rate will not appear at checkout. This also means you won't be able to select this as an option when printing shipping labels.

 

How are you currently displaying your shipping rates? Are you showing the calculated rates from Shopify Shipping at the checkout, or are you using a third-party app to display your shipping rates? If your shipping settings are configured to display Shopify Shipping rates, then customers will not see UPS 2nd Day Air or UPS 3 Day Air as options if it's cheaper and faster shipped with Ground. Disabling UPS Ground as a shipping option should also "force" 2nd Day Air or 3 Day Air as an option.

 

However, if you are using a shipping app, then the rates shown at the checkout will be drawn directly from the app itself and will need to be configured in the app. If this is the case and you require assistance editing your current rates in the app, you can always refer to the apps' help docs or even reach out to the developer directly. You can typically find a link to the apps' documentation as well as their contact information directly in the apps' page in the Shopify App Store

 

When it comes to printing shipping labels using Shopify Shipping, UPS’ API automatically filters out services which are more expensive than UPS Ground, but have the same (or slower) delivery time. This is why you won't see it as an option when fulfilling orders. Disabling UPS Ground as a shipping method should allow you to purchase a label for UPS 2nd Day Air or UPS 3 Day Air, but if this isn't ideal, then you can also use an app like Shippo to purchase and print these particular shipping labels instead. 

 

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Julie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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tb49913
Tourist
6 0 12

Unfortunately, Shippo doesn't have the huge discounts that Shopify does.  If you'd like to give me Shopify's UPS login info info so I can get the discounted rates through Shippo I would gladly do that.

Can we please just get all of the shipping options?  There are very valid use cases for offering both UPS ground and UPS 2 Day.  It doesn't make sense why 2 Day would be unavailable.  It seems like Shopify may not have thought this through very well.  Don't blame UPS's API's.  There's always a way around that.  The shipping app that we have is able to show pricing for UPS Ground AND UPS 2 Day Air, so why can't Shopify figure this out?

This just feels like we're getting excuses and no actual solutions to our problem.

Julie
Shopify Staff
1109 106 367

Thanks for following up, @tb49913

 

I appreciate your feedback here and I apologize for the frustration. I've double-checked with my Shipping team to see if there is any way we can force those methods to appear as options when purchasing shipping labels, but unfortunately, the API doesn't support the ability to do so at this time. 

 

Right now, the best workaround would be to use an app like Shippo, ShippingEasy, or ShipStation to print your labels. I understand that these apps don't offer the same discounted rates that Shopify does and I know that this isn't ideal. However, we do have a system in place for submitting feedback and suggestions to our developers. I would be happy to send this up to my team as I can definitely see how this would benefit businesses like yours.

 

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Julie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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tb49913
Tourist
6 0 12

Thank you Julie.

 

Not having access to the discounted rate really sucks.  The discounted next day air rate is nearly the same as the non-discounted 2 day air rate from what I've seen so far.

I am not a web developer, but my full time job is embedded software development.  I have to find ways around API restrictions practically on a daily basis.  The one universal truth when dealing with API's is that if there's the will there's a way.  If this were an API on an embedded platform I were dealing with I would send what I'm sending now, scan it to see what information might be missing, then perform another request to get only the missing information.  I don't know if that would work in this case but that's where I would start.

tb49913
Tourist
6 0 12

Please submit this to the developers.  If there's a way to let me know when it's been implemented that would be great. 

Ideally, I would like to have all possible shipping methods from a particular carrier listed without being filtered when creating a shipping label.

 

The reason this is such a big deal for us is because we sell some food products that are ok at below about 80 degrees.  At 80 degrees and above they can start to melt if shipping takes too long.  Even if ground shipping is estimated to arrive in 2 days, that's not a guarantee.  If it takes too long that can mean the product could be ruined by the time customer receives it.  With 2 Day Air, delivery is guaranteed by UPS and if it takes longer, we can potentially get compensated for the ruined product.  With ground, if it doesn't get there in time we just have to eat the shipping and product costs and ship again or have pissed off customers.  The Shopify discounted next day air can add about 50% to the order total, this is driving customers away.  The non-discounted 2 Day Air from Shippo and other providers has the same problem.  This is a very serious issue for our store and we have some tough decisions to make.

Julie
Shopify Staff
1109 106 367

Thanks for the additional feedback, @tb49913. I can most definitely see how this is a pain point for your business and how beneficial it would be to have all shipping methods available as options when purchasing labels and fulfilling your orders. 

 

I just want to assure you that I've gone ahead and submitted this feature request to our developers; I'm really hoping this is something we can roll out in a future platform update. New features are regularly announced on our Announcements page, as well as our Shopify Changelog, so feel free to keep an eye on those pages for an update.

 

We really value merchant feedback and suggestions, so thank you again for letting us know. Feel free to reach back out if you have any further questions. 

Julie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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rratl
Tourist
6 1 6

This is also a huge problem for our business since we also ship perishable food and need that 2 day guaranteed delivery that only UPS 2 Day Air gives. By only allowing customers to select ground when the ground ESTIMATE is two days or less it really hurts our business when an item takes longer and we have to eat all the cost. I'm not sure why Shopify forces the cheapest and ESTIMATED quickest option when it is simply just an ESTIMATED delivery date. We need a guarantee with the time sensitive products we ship. Since UPS ground has no guarantee this shipping method doesn't work for our perishable food business. We need a way to force the rates we want to be displayed to our customers. This is very frustrating that such a simple option is not available.

Julie
Shopify Staff
1109 106 367

Hi, @rratl!

 

Thank you for taking the time to express your feedback. I can definitely see how this is frustrating and a major pain point for your business. I've gone ahead and added your name to our existing feature request so that our product teams know there is further interest in having this option available. In the meantime, you could look into using either Shippo, ShippingEasy, or ShipStation to purchase shipping labels for the UPS 2 Day Air method. 

 

I do hope that we'll be able to see this option added in the near future as I know many store owners like yourself would be thrilled to utilize it. If you have more feedback to add or any questions, please let me know.

Julie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Anindo
Shopify Partner
555 1 27

Based on the pointers mentioned by various people in the thread, I can summarise the following problems :

1.  There is no way to get UPS 2 Day Air services if the transit time is less than or equal to 2 days. 
2.  If customers go with an external app, then the first problem is resolved, but then store owners cannot leverage the cheap negotiates rates of Shopify.

 

Although i do not have a quick fix for this, but you can go through this post to get a rational and practical solution.

For your perishable or time bound deliveries, if Shopify does not provide Guaranteed 2 day Air services, the practical option is to go with an external app like the Multi carrier Shipping label app. Now comes the question, what about discounted rates? Yes, you will not get discounted rates as with this app, you need to have your own UPS account. But there is an advantage to it. As you keep on shipping for 1-2 months and slowly contribute more and more shipments to UPS, they will take a note of it. After a few months, you can re-negotiate your contract with UPS and get cheaper shipping rates.

 

Till that time, the best solution would be to use existing services like UPS Ground from Shopify and get the 2 Day Air and other premium shipping services from the app. 

 

Product Owner @ PluginHive
Shipping Automation | FedEx shipping | Multi-carrier shipping | Shipment Tracking | Australia Post shipping
macadonswc
Visitor
1 0 1

Any new updates to this? This is still an issue and should be addressed! Thank you

Julie
Shopify Staff
1109 106 367

Hi, @macadonswc

Thanks for hopping into the conversation.

Unfortunately, UPS' API still limits merchants from being able to select UPS Air options if UPS Ground is able to deliver in a faster timeline, at a lower cost. While this isn't something Shopify can control, I would be happy to send your feedback up to your developers; it would be great if we could work with UPS to come up with a workaround for merchants using Shopify Shipping.

In the meantime, I recommend using one of the workarounds mentioned in this thread, like either purchasing the label directly from UPS or using an app like ShippoShippingEasy, or ShipStation

I appreciate your feedback and I'll make sure it gets sent up to the appropriate team! 

Julie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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lmcarlton
Visitor
1 0 0

Any luck on getting this fixed?  Like many others on this thread, we also need to use UPS 2 or 3 day services and they are not available.  Also the estimated that are provided for UPS ground are not even realistic.  Who can help with this ?

khacson2504
Visitor
3 0 0

If selling is a developer I think it will be useful for you.
https://help.shopify.com/en/api/reference/shipping-and-fulfillment/carrierservice

robin87
Tourist
11 0 1

Jumping on the bandwagon here to add a voice to this issue from 2019, in 2023. We would also really benefit from the addition of 2nd Day Air as an option to guarantee delivery, regardless of how fast ground is estimated to be. If the customer chooses to spend a little more for that guarantee, that's their choice, and many of our customers would prefer that. This is especially true during the holiday season. Please please please invest the time and resources into making this an option!