UPS Ground Saver Does Not Work Properly

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Some of you may have noticed that a new shipping option recently popped up called UPS Ground Saver. This new option has caused two days of lost productivity and several angry customers for my small company, so I wanted to hopefully save some of you from dealing with the same problems.

First, I had no idea how this new option was even showing up on our customers’ list of shipping options. When looking at shipping options in the Shipping & Delivery section of Settings in Shopify, my UPS Ground Saver option was not selected. Curious? However, the Future Services checkbox was checked. So, even though the Ground Saver option was not checked, it was activated because it is considered a new service. This seems like BUG #1. As soon as that service was activated, the Ground Saver checkbox should have been checked.

Second, when a customer chooses UPS Ground Saver at checkout (which they almost akways will because it’s the cheapest), Shopify does not do an address verification. So, we were able to send out several packages to nonexistent addresses in California, because our customer made a cut and paste error. We tested this theory, and sure enough, we were unable to purchase a shipping label for any other UPS or USPS option because the system did not recognize the addresses. This same validation was not run on the packages being shipped via UPS Ground Saver. This is BUG #2.

Third, all of our packages sent via UPS Ground Saver actually handed off last-mile delivery to USPS. When our packages started coming up as “delivery failed’ and/or were sent back to our facility, it was apparent that USPS handled this last step (including marking the boxes with extra postage due stamps). We talked to multiple people at  USPS and not a single person, or their supervisor, had ever heard of UPS Ground Saver shipping and had no idea how to help us. So, I did some digging online. There isn’t much info online because this shipping option is so new; however, I did read that USPS may do last-mile delivery for this UPS option. The real kicker is that YOU FORFEIT YOUR UPS INSURANCE for that last-mile delivery. Shopify does not make this clear when choosing this option and they show that it is 5 day delivery, even though the online info clearly states that the UPS Ground Saver option does not adhere to any strict delivery timelines. This is BUG #3. 

This new option has not been well-communicated, is not working properly, makes claims it can’t deliver upon, and has the potential to mess up a lot of holiday packages. And the last-mile delivery folks at USPS don’t know they are doing last-mile delivery. I would love to know if anyone else out there has experienced any of these issues. They seem fixable, but until then, this is not a good customer or merchant experience.