US Postal Service, A New Year, An Old Failure
Last year around this time, I wrote a blog post about the 2011 USPS failure. They made a major unannounced change to their rate service that thousands of ecommerce applications depend on for returning shipping rates to customers. It caused major issues and rate problems for many online merchants.
Fast forward to 2012, and the USPS has once again caused upheaval for the ecommerce industry. Although less of an impact from last year’s debacle, it still is a major issue for merchants offering First Class shipping options.
What did they do this time?
This year, they chose to change the name of First Class rates from “package” to “parcel“. Sounds like a simple harmless change. It would be if the USPS didn’t make the shipping option name the unique identifier for the service.
That’s right, the key that every ecommerce application uses for knowing it’s the right shipping option is the very name USPS chose to change!
Basic programming dictates that you assign a unique key/field to each option, so a change to the name of the option would not change the application. Ah, the government at work, gotta love it.
“But we let you know!”
Last year, the USPS chose to tell NO ONE about the name changes they put in place. Seems someone was listening over there, as this year they sent an email to *some* people informing them of the name change. The key word in the last sentence is “some”.
Seems most developers (including us, ShopSite, and other ecommerce vendors) didn’t get the message. In fact, doing a Google search for the phrases in the email show it was not posted on the USPS website, nor was it posted on their Postal Explorer information site. Just forums and blogs talking about the issue after it impacted them. (If I’m wrong about this, please let me know.)
Patches being issued, workarounds available
ShopSite is working on a patch to fix this First Class issue. We’ll be applying it to all Version 11 SP1 stores as soon as it’s available.
UPDATE 1/24/2012, 10:00 PM ET – All ShopSite stores running version 11 SP1 that are hosted with us have been patched to fix this issue.
In the interim, if you need to return first class rates, you could choose to return “First Class Letter” (up to 3.5 ounces) or “First Class Flat”, both of which were unaffected by the USPS change. For these to work, you would have to change each product’s package type though. So, it may be easier to wait for us to patch your store if you are affected.
…
I won’t beat a dead horse, or re-post all my lessons that the USPS still has to learn (if they’re still in business in the future). Read last year’s post for my admonishments. 
In the meantime, we’ll work on patching stores and getting First Class rates back in business for our clients.
Determine which shipping carriers you want to use, such as USPS or FedEx. Take into account international customers as well. You may find that you want to ship your domestic orders by FedEx but USPS is more economical for international orders.
Credit cards, COD, Check, PayPal, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout – there are countless payment options available these days. Think about what options you want to provide to your customers, but don’t overwhelm them with too many. Then check to make sure the store software you want to use will support the payment options you selected.
Which Scotty? I’m referring to the Engineer from the original Star Trek – He always managed to fix things much faster and better than his initial assessment would seem to indicate. (I’m sure he was padding the time/estimate to look better.)
A new year has begun! Ushered in by Mayor Bloomberg and Lady Gaga (quite the pair). I’m excited for what 2012 has in store. And I have yet to abandon any New Year’s resolutions. 
