Warn on PO Box addresses with a business rule

Summary: To catch orders going to a PO Box you do not ship to, create a business rule (an automatic if-this-then-that setting) that checks the address fields for PO Box wording and shows a warning. The warning is informational, so a packer can confirm the address and still ship when it is fine.

Before you start

Decide where the rule should apply: to all accounts, or only to the profiles that need it. A profile is the account and settings a shipment ships under.

Steps

Create a business rule, either global (all accounts) or scoped to the profiles that need it.
Set the rule to look at Address 1 and Address 2.
Add criteria that match the PO Box wording customers use, including PO Box, P.O. Box, P O Box, POB, and no-space or lowercase versions such as pobox.
Set the rule action to show a warning message, for example: "PO Box detected. Please reconfirm the address."
Test the rule with a few sample addresses in each format to confirm the warning appears.

A plain "Box 123" is left out on purpose, because "Box" by itself can be a suite or unit and matching it would wrongly flag good street addresses. If you would rather have PO Box orders automatically switch to a postal service instead of just warning, or you want help building the rule, email support@shipstore.com; building it can be done as billable work.

What you should see

An address with a PO Box in one of the formats you set triggers the warning. A normal street address does not. A packer can acknowledge the warning and keep going when the address is fine.

If something goes wrong

The rule does not fire. The criteria may not match how the address is written. Widen the wording it checks for, and confirm the rule is on the right profile.

Business Rules
Block a carrier on Collect terms with an error rule

Knowledge Base