UPS Residential vs. Commercial rates

[lhungil]

Should work. You might try something like the following in your shipping module:

function _upsRescom($foo) {
    global $order, $db;

    $result = $db->Execute(
        'SELECT `c`.`customers_extrafield` FROM `' . TABLE_ADDRESS_BOOK '` AS `ab` '.
        'LEFT JOIN `' . TABLE_CUSTOMERS . '` AS `c` ON `ab`.`customers_id`=`c`.`customers_id` ' .
        'WHERE `ab`.`address_book_id`=\'' . (int)$_SESSION['sendto'] . '\''
    );
    if(!$result ->EOF) {
        // Check the contents of the extra field and set $foo = RES or COM as appropriate
        // You may want to only change $foo if things match exactly, in case somewhere
        // the extrafield is used for a different purpose and contains different data.
        // $result->fields['customers_extrafield'] will contain the result of the db query
    }

    switch ($foo) {
      case 'RES': // Residential Address
        $this->_upsResComCode = '1';
        break;
      case 'COM': // Commercial Address
        $this->_upsResComCode = '0';
        break;
    }
  }

[apollowilcox]

As you can see UPS does not charge the proper amount according to residential or business...

To re-open this old wound... It is now 2019 and UPS XML is a great method to retrieve our negotiated rates from UPS. But i cannot understand why it cannot send back the appropriate rate based on whether the address is commercial or residential. This status is clearly known at label printing time (Worldship or Shipstation or UPS.COM), so why can't it be known up front when the address is initially entered and shipping costs are requested? Get rid of the blanket COM/RES choice that we, as adminstrators, have to make within the shipping mod, and just let the address drive it. Seems so logical to non-coders like me! Is there any hope that this will happen?

Our website customer base is an even mix of commercial and residential, so this is a recurring frustration. Either we overcharge (and possibly lose business from) the commercial customers, or end up upside down on the shipping charges for the RES customers.

[apollowilcox]

As a follow-up to my own rant from April 2019, we were able to solve this, with the help of another ZC user/ hobby coder. Our modified UPSXML plug-in determines the Residential/ Commercial status based on the customer's shipping address, sends that to UPS (rather than sending the 'across the board' selection in the plug-in admin), retrieves the appropriate R or C rate, then applies any markup fee that was set in the plug-in admin. Since installing this in December, our published shipping rates are consistently reasonable for all customers (R and C). This makes us look much more competitive/ reasonable while avoiding losing money on shipments. PM me if you're interested in this.