UPS Residential vs. Commercial rates

**TCSDCC** · 8 Mar 2007, 02:42 PM

About half of my costumers are residental, and the remainder are commercial (as far as shipping rates are concerned). Is there a way for my costumers to select which they are so that I won't have to keep footing the difference? There is almost a 25% difference in price between the two. I considered charging everyone the Residential price, but I'd like to be able to pass on the savings from the cheaper shipping to my commercial costumers.

Thanks in Advance.

**Ajeh** · 8 Mar 2007, 02:48 PM

One method is to add a flag to your customers table to distinguish between the two customers as business or residential ...

This could then be incorporated into your shipping module and change the way the rates are calculated ...

Currently, there is one setting ... utilizing this flag, you could change that setting per customer when the shipping is calculated ...

This would require some custom coding, but it might be a doable solution to your problem ...

**meadowbrook** · 22 Apr 2009, 08:45 PM

Your suggestion to flag a customer as commercial or residential based upon their own selection is one method. As you indicated; customer can selection commercial knowing that the shipping rates would be lower.

The UPS XML Tools now offer what UPS refers to as "classification" whereby the tool classifies the address as commercial or residential. I'm far from a programmer but it would be a OUTSTANDING if someone could utilize this XML Response Tag and quote UPS Shipping Rates based upon whether the delivery address is commercial or residential.

**Guaritore** · 22 Apr 2009, 09:17 PM

I have a similar issue. I am using a shipping table and need to know how to add a selection so they can choose business or residential. The price will be the same, but I need that information on my invoice.

Thanks.

**marcopolo** · 27 Jun 2009, 07:26 PM

Zen Cart already has a company field, this should actually be a none writeable field until you check mark a box stating it is a company address, then it should allow you to enter the company name.

Then the UPS module should look to see if either the checkmark is there or if that company field is populated, just like the FedEx module does now.

The reason the field should be non writable until you actually checkmark a box STATING it is a commercial address is because I get customers that write NONE for the company field. So if you have a check mark box this should solve that issue, they would just skip it if they are shipping to a residentail address and not a company.

Damn..I wish I could program this feature…any takers!

**atl2rva** · 20 Apr 2010, 02:44 PM

Did anyone resolve this? I have been looking for a solution to this same issue. Either having UPS automatically figure if its Res/ Comm or a check box for one or the other.

**dgcdesign** · 25 Jun 2010, 03:30 PM

I have the same issue. Has anyone ever solved this problem? Seems like a feature that should be standard with the shipping module.

**Ajeh** · 25 Jun 2010, 04:35 PM

You could try to customize the UPS shipping module and alter the content of:
$this->_upsRescom(MODULE_SHIPPING_UPS_RES);

based on if the $order->delivery['company'] is empty or filled in ...

**kstew923** · 31 Mar 2011, 07:58 PM

Any resolution to this? I cannot offer based on if the company field is filled in, as I am dealing strictly with business customers, but some of whom run their business out of their homes, and I want their business names for future correspondence.

**g2ktcf** · 4 Apr 2011, 07:08 PM

I have been asking questions like this alot. The real story is that you have to understand your business first. Mine is horrible when it comes to predicting shipping. Many of my items fall under UPS's Dimensional Weight rules.

First off, the product database needs to be amended to help us get the correct information to even START to better the UPS module. I have looked at the module's code and its not that horrible. However, I think its time to look at modifying it with goal of making it web-serviceable with PHP and SOAP.

I have no idea how an "order" appears in the db but each item needs the overall dimensions added (LxWxH would be best). Only then can you examine programatically the order in an attempt to "guess" what the real shipping charges would be. An Oversize flag on each item would also help.

I am actually considering showing my customers both reg and "dimensional weight" versions so that they won't be surprised if I sent them another invoice for shipping.