Summary: A DHL Parcel Expedited shipment to a military address (APO, FPO, or DPO) is turned down because the order has no customs lines on it. Add the commodity details the way you would for an international shipment, then process it again.
Problem
You process a DHL Parcel Expedited shipment to an APO, FPO, or DPO address. The order was built as a domestic shipment with no customs lines. DHL sends back:
Error(s) from DHL: Invalid value for field 'customsDetails', reason: 'Customs detail array should be at least 1 but no more than 5 elements'
Cause
DHL now carries APO, FPO, and DPO shipments on Parcel Expedited, which is a domestic service. Those shipments still cross a customs border, so DHL asks for customs lines anyway.
When the order is built as plain domestic, Shipstore sends none, and DHL turns the request down because it needs at least one.
How to check: open the order and look at the customs or commodity lines. If there are none and the address is APO, FPO, or DPO, that is the cause.
Fix
- Open the order.
- Add customs (commodity) lines the way you would on an international shipment: description, quantity, value, and the country where the item was made, for each item.
- Check at least one line is there. DHL will not take the shipment with none.
- Process the shipment again on DHL Parcel Expedited.
- If military orders come in from a feed or a batch file, the customs fields have to be mapped so they fill in on their own. Email support@shipstore.com and say which feed or file the orders come from.
What you should see
The DHL Parcel Expedited shipment to the military address processes with no customsDetails message, and the label and customs paperwork print with the commodity lines on them.
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