Why, of course!
After all, there IS a reason why every new recruit to this or that Amabot-programming team is required, on pain of death, to genuflect before this shrine:
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Since I did not / will not onboard to NFSE, I won’t be posting this problem there, so I decided to open a case about this shipping problem today. I’ll keep the board posted if I receiving any meaningful or interesting progress about getting Puerto Rico activated for Ground Advantage shipping.
I can purchase Ground Advantage labels through Ship Station for Amazon Orders going to Puerto Rico. However, it does not give me the option to purchase Amazon Buy Shipping labels through Ship Station like it does for non-Puerto Rico addresses.
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As of 9/2/23 15:00 EDT, “First Class Packages” were still mixed in with the “Ground(less) (dis)Advantage” labels being churned out by Amazon buy shipping.
Cheer up, bucko - only 194 days to go before the next St, Valentine’s Day prefaces the expected completion date of Amazon’s roll-out:
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As expected, they didn’t even address my concern. Their response:
From your e-mail, we do understand that you are concerned about the USPS Ground Advantage. We understand your concern and please know that we are here to support you and address any concerns you may have.
Please be informed that, USPS Ground Advantage is the United States Postal Service’s enhanced ground shipping solution. It is a simple, reliable and affordable ground solution for packages from 1 oz to 70 lbs.
The following shipping methods have been consolidated into new domestic shipping methods known as USPS Ground Advantage:
- USPS First-Class Package Service
- USPS Parcel Select Ground
- USPS Parcel Select Cubic
Offerings:
- USPS Ground Advantage Light: For packages less than 1 lb.
- USPS Ground Advantage Heavy: For packages up to 70 lb.
- USPS Ground Advantage Cubic: Cubic prices based on package size and distance rather than weight.
You must manually update the name of the shipping methods to ensure you can continue automatically purchasing labels from USPS.
You can select the new shipping method on Seller Central > Manage Orders > Confirm Shipment.
Note: After September 5, 2023, you will no longer be able to select the three deprecated shipping methods on Seller Central > Manage Orders > Confirm Shipment
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this issue.
To help us continually improve, we ask that you take a moment to complete our survey below to tell us about your experience with this specific interaction.
Were you satisfied with the support provided?
Click here for yes:
Click here for no:
Thank you for selling with Amazon,
Candy [C] W.
Amazon.com Seller Support
If we are lucky, Amazon might have it figured out by the end of the month (September 30th deadline).
Maybe the delay in integration is due to a desire to rein in the reign of error promulgated by the “Hey, scammer Buyer, send that 11 oz. item back in a refrigerator box - we ain’t payin’ the freight” Initiative. 
Hey, a boy can dream, can’t he? 
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Now received my 2nd response from Seller Support telling me it is not yet available:
A very warm greeting to XXXXX. This is Daniel here to assist you for the day regarding your issue related to USPS ground advantage buy shipping.
I understand how important it is for you to get the issue resolved and I thus assure you we are on it together and shall soon find a resolution.
Please be informed, this service is not yet available in Amazon Buy Shipping. Amazon is currently working on implementing the new USPS Ground Advantage domestic shipping services.
We will follow-up with another communication when Amazon has enabled the new shipping method.
When the new shipping methods are launched, you can buy labels through Amazon Buy Shipping and your existing shipping methods will update automatically to the equivalent USPS Ground Advantage shipping method.
In the meantime, you can continue to use the existing USPS shipping services for your orders.
We’ll share more information on the launch date and any actions to take when we enable the new shipping methods.
To help us continually improve, we ask that you take a moment to complete our survey below to tell us about your experience with this specific interaction.
To help us continually improve, we ask that you take a moment to complete our survey below to tell us about your experience with this specific interaction.
Were you satisfied with the support provided?
Thank you for selling with Amazon,
Daniel S.
Amazon.com Seller Support
And here is the Email notification from Amazon from 8/24/23 telling me Ground Advantage is available:
Dear Seller,
The United States Postal Service (USPS) Ground Advantage domestic shipping service is now available for your Amazon shipments.
This service consolidates the current First-Class package service, Parcel Select ground, and Parcel Select Cubic shipping methods into the following ship methods:
• USPS Ground Advantage Light: For packages that weigh less than 1lb
• USPS Ground Advantage Heavy: For packages that weigh 1lb to 70lbs
• USPS Ground Advantage Cubic: Cubic prices based on package size and distance rather than weight
USPS has adjusted its shipping service prices with the USPS Ground Advantage launch. These new prices have been reflected in Amazon Buy Shipping.
When you purchase Amazon Buy Shipping labels, you can now choose USPS Ground Advantage. Your existing shipping templates will automatically update to the equivalent USPS Ground Advantage ship method over the coming weeks.
If you use a third-party order management tool, or your own software, to automate order fulfillment, you may need to manually update the ship method name to ensure you can continue to automatically purchase USPS labels.
To learn more, go to USPS Ground Advantage.
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I just received another nearly identical response from Daniel S. telling me Ground Advantage is not yet available. I then had Amazon call me, but the agent could not hear me.
Why does Amazon cheap-out on infrastructure and staffing at every turn? I know…stockholders. But seriously…
4th reply from “Venus” states the following:
"Unfortunately, USPS Ground Advantage is not an eligible ship method for this order.
Amazon uses internal transportation data and high likelihood of meeting the buyer’s delivery promise to surface ship methods. It is possible for a ship method to be available on a carrier’s website and not available on Buy Shipping."
I then had another call with Seller Support, this time they could hear me. The agent said he will submit feedback to the transportation department to see if they can add this shipping option to Puerto Rico. I explained that in 4 weeks sellers will lose the ability to ship to PR via First Class or Parcel Select, leaving only Priority Mail as an option which is much more expensive than GA.
I also reminded him that it is possible to ship to PR via GA using other platforms. I suspect the hangup here is that part of route to PR is over sea, not technically “Ground”, and I bet this sent the otherwise intelligent programmers into the current tailspin.
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From what we have been told, the special commercial pricing (the one that takes PM Flat Rate envelopes down to $7.60 from $8.05) is what Amazon has failed to implement completely in addition to the Ground Advantage change. This special commercial pricing is different than the standard commercial pricing (as can be bought through the USPS site). The special commercial pricing treats the contiguous 48 states different than “offshore” US locations like Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, all US territories and APO/FPO. The contiguous 48 states get the special commercial pricing while Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, all US territories and APO/FPO have only the standard commercial pricing. We have been able to verify that this special commercial pricing / standard commercial pricing is in fact what has been implemented on ShipStation. ShipStation has the special commercial pricing for the contiguous 48 states and standard commercial pricing for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, all US territories and APO/FPO.
Amazon has not completely integrated the USPS Ground Advantage and has some errors within the parts that they have implemented. Our June other charges, where our Hawaii orders had up charges of $0.45 each, was caused by Amazon charging $7.60 to the sellers and then getting hit with the $8.05 charge from USPS which then was passed back to the sellers. We are now expecting up charges for our July Hawaii orders. Although this is a special commercial pricing issue created with Amazon’s implementation of the special commercial pricing, it is tied in with the way Amazon has implemented the USPS Ground Advantage change.
Amazon should have another Buy Shipping update sometime between now and September 30th when they remove all reference to USPS First Class Package, Parcel Select and other services which changed name with the Ground Advantage implementation. After that update, we will be able to see what was fixed and what wasn’t.
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