USPS Ground Advantage replacing USPS First Class Package

-- url of the page with the problem -- : www.ariesgamesandminis.com
-- HikaShop version -- : 4.7.2
-- Joomla version -- : 3.10.11

With the pending discontinuation of the USPS First Class Package service with the US Postal Service...how is HikaShop going to implement the new USPS Ground Advantage service and when will that happen?

Also...for those of us using the "Price per product" option...this needs to be implemented as an automatic switch otherwise there will be many people having to shut down their shop and manually change every single listing of their products.

Thank you

Hi,

We're not aware of this change yet.

The current documentation for developers to calculate the shipping rates is here:
www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/rate-calculator-api.htm
It was last updated in September 2022 and it doesn't mention Ground Advantage yet.

If you have technical information about the API changes, or if you can request them to USPS, we'll be happy to hear about them.

I don't know anything about API stuff or coding, so I will leave that part up to you guys...but here is the article from the Postal Service about it...

about.usps.com/newsroom/national-release...icing-simplicity.htm

Hi,

Well, they're saying that

USPS Retail Ground, Parcel Select Ground, and First-Class Package Service will be incorporated into USPS Ground Advantage

during summer.
We'll see how it goes. We'll be happy to adapt the plugin to include the new name and remove the old ones if they decide to do so.

Let us know if you hear about changes to the API. For now, it's still as before, so we can't make any changes in the plugin as we don't know what and how they'll change it.

nicolas wrote: Hi,

Well, they're saying that

USPS Retail Ground, Parcel Select Ground, and First-Class Package Service will be incorporated into USPS Ground Advantage during summer.
We'll see how it goes. We'll be happy to adapt the plugin to include the new name and remove the old ones if they decide to do so.

Let us know if you hear about changes to the API. For now, it's still as before, so we can't make any changes in the plugin as we don't know what and how they'll change it.

Nicolas...just wanted to circle back around to this post. I've received a notification from ShipRush that First Class Package and Parcel Select (aka Retail Ground) will be combined into the USPS Ground Advantage shipping.

Is the shipping plugin going to offer USPS Ground Advantage as a shipping option selection so customers are not confused by the changes in shipping service? Based on experience of past events in changes with the US Postal Service...someone along the way will get upset if we as sellers just start changing the service on them as the two mentioned will no longer be available.

Also...if there was a way to do the change that took the blocks some of us have in place and carried them over to the new shipping option so we don't have to go product by product with thousands of items...that would be SINCERELY appreciated. The image attached is just an example of what I mean from one item on my product pages.

Thank you

Hi,

I did find this:
www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/202...ls-release-notes.pdf
Which explains that the API will be backward compatible. So normally, there is nothing to do for us.

The official documentation doesn't yet provide precise information about what we need to do to add the changes on our end:
www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/rat...pi.htm#_Toc138410716
For example, for first class service, the plugin has to provide the mail type to the USPS API with the parameter FirstClassMailType
I suppose that the name of that parameter will evolve but I don't know what it will be.

Regarding your question with the shipping price per product, it should not be a problem. I think you'll just have to edit the "first class" shipping method and select "ground advantage" instead of "first class" in the services option once we release the plugin with the new service added to the list.

nicolas wrote: Hi,

I did find this:
www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/202...ls-release-notes.pdf
Which explains that the API will be backward compatible. So normally, there is nothing to do for us.

The official documentation doesn't yet provide precise information about what we need to do to add the changes on our end:
www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/rat...pi.htm#_Toc138410716
For example, for first class service, the plugin has to provide the mail type to the USPS API with the parameter FirstClassMailType
I suppose that the name of that parameter will evolve but I don't know what it will be.

Regarding your question with the shipping price per product, it should not be a problem. I think you'll just have to edit the "first class" shipping method and select "ground advantage" instead of "first class" in the services option once we release the plugin with the new service added to the list.

Ok thank you...funny thing is I already had a customer ask about this and why it said First Class on an order today but he knew First Class was gone.

Going to be a long weekend...

Hi,

Indeed. It's surprising that USPS is releasing a new service without updating the API documentation to reflect the change. I would recommend raising the issue with your contact at USPS.

nicolas wrote: Hi,

Indeed. It's surprising that USPS is releasing a new service without updating the API documentation to reflect the change. I would recommend raising the issue with your contact at USPS.

I have...but as I'm not a developer they will only take the issue so far. They said you guys need to contact them to discuss.

Hi,

We don't have any contact at USPS. Could you provide your contact with the necessary information so that we can reach to them ?

nicolas wrote: Hi,

We don't have any contact at USPS. Could you provide your contact with the necessary information so that we can reach to them ?

I 7sed this contact form. Unfortunately they don't allow direct email so it's either this or a phone call...

faq.usps.com/s/article/USPS-Web-Tools-Th...07%3A30%20p.m.%20CST )

Hi,

Thanks. I've sent an email through there.

nicolas wrote: Hi,

Thanks. I've sent an email through there.

Most welcome sir!

Has there been any further developments with this? I have the newest version of HikaShop installed 5.0...and Ground Advantage is still not showing up but has been in use since July.

Hi,

We did not hear back from USPS. They ignored us. And with the holidays in between, I had forgotten about this.
However, I checked the USPS API documentation page again today, following your message, and I can see that they updated it 2 weeks ago with the necessary information to support Ground Advantage.
I've made the necessary code changes on our end.
Here is a new version of the plugin you can install to support it.
Let us know how it goes so that we can include it in the next version of HikaShop.

Thank you sir! I just tried it on the test site and it looks like it's all working, but I will test it later today and contact back if there's any issues. Most appreciated!

Hi,

Note that the WebTools API, on which the old plugin relies, will be phased out by USPS at the beginning of 2026:
postalpro.usps.com/node/13834
USPS has released a new API which is already available and which will replace the old one going forward.
We've released today a new plugin for that new API:
www.hikashop.com/marketplace/product/290-usps.html