Summary: A premium service like Standard Overnight can get rate shopped down to Ground when it is not listed in your rate shop rule. Add every premium service to the rule so it is never downgraded.

Problem

You picked a premium service (for example, FedEx Standard Overnight), but the order shipped Ground. Rate shopping downgraded it. You expected premium services never to be rate shopped.

Cause

Your rate shop rule (the rule that picks the cheapest allowed service) only protects the services you list. The premium service was not on that list, so rate shopping was allowed to swap it for a cheaper Ground service.

If you have several rules that set the same rate shop, each for different criteria (for example, one per customer number), fixing only one of them is not enough. Another rule can still match the order and send it back to the rate shop, so a service you sent directly, such as USPS Priority Mail, can still come back as a cheaper Ground service.

How to check: open the rate shop rule and see whether the premium service is in the list of services it applies to.

Fix

  1. Go to Administration > Business Rules, or open the profile's rules under Profile Extras > Business Rules.
  2. Open the rate shop rule.
  3. Add every premium service you want protected (Overnight, Next Day Air, 2-Day, and similar) so rate shopping skips them.
  4. Check your other rate shop rules for the same gap and add the services there too. Every rule that sets the same rate shop needs the change.
  5. Process a test order on a premium service and confirm it stays premium.

If your orders come from another system: before you change which services a rate shop can pick, make sure that system recognizes the new service. If it does not, shipments can process in Shipstore but fail to come back to your system, and the same order can be shipped more than once.

What you should see

A test order on a premium service keeps that service instead of Ground. A normal order still rate shops as expected.

Related articles

  • Orders stay on Ground: STAYING GND instead of the expected service