Archive for January, 2014

USPS® API Update January 2014

Posted by: Genevieve Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
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© United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Many of our customers who are using USPS®‘ API to get postal rates have received notification in the past weeks that an update will be released for the API effective January 26th, 2014. The United States Postal Service has documented the changes in a press release on their website. As a service to our customers, we have reviewed the new API documentation and have done extensive testing using the test API servers which USPS made available on Wednesday, January 14th. We have tested Magento® from version 1.4 to version 1.8 Community Edition and version 1.7 to version 1.13 Enterprise Edition against this change. Our conclusion based on this research is that we expect there will no interruption of service to USPS users on Magento.

While we do not expect these changes to have any significant impact on the business operations of our customers, there are some things worth noting:

  • This release includes price increases to some services.  No action is required here, you will automatically see the updated rates. You can review these changes in the USPS press release of September 25th, 2013.
  • Standard Post service has been removed for zones 1 – 4, for both rates and labels. Customers who rely on this shipping method should ensure this will not have any negative repercussions.
  • Some additional services have been added: “Priority Mail Express 1030 AM Delivery” and “First Class Metered”.  These are not supported by current Magento or the July 2013 USPS patch and so will not be automatically available as a shipping method. Support for these services will require Magento to release an update to their USPS carrier logic.

As we’ve previously announced, you will need a patch to see rates for USPS on Magento after their July, 2013 API update. However, no changes to this patch are required for the January 2014 API update and if you have already installed this patch it will continue to work as expected.

This post is provided for information only and we encourage all of our customers to contact the USPS if you have concerns about how these changes will effect your business operations.

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