Buyer Says I'm Blocking PO Boxes, but I Don't Have It Checked in Site Preferences

[hippicker]

Title says it all, I hae a buyer attempting to purchase an Item and they're recieving an error message saying I do not accept purchases from PO Boxes. I googled for an answer and I was informed about how to check my shipping exclusion settings. When I went to look at them, PO Box was NOT checked and I left it unchecked. 

Is there some other possible setting that could be triggering the block?

[blueeggsandspam]

Did you check the shipping on the listing? You have too many for me to check them all.

[coffeebean832]

I looked at two of your listings and PO Boxes are blocked.

Do you use business policies? Check the specific policies to make sure there are no blocks within the policies.

I think you already did this but go to Site Preferences - Exclude shipping locations - edit and make sure PO Box is unchecked. If you unchecked it after setting up your listings, or if you used sell similar on a listing that had the block then you may have to adjust excluded locations at the listing level. You can fix this setting on all of your listings with the bulk edit tool.

[hippicker]

Here is a picture of me looking at the exclusion list directly on the listing. Nothing is checked. I'm excluding international as a whole though, is that what is causing it?

[hillbillymedia]

I agree with coffeebean. It sounds like your business policies are the culprit. There are 3 types of business policies that can be created, shipping, payment and returns. Ebay auto-creates these when you create listings and you can create or change them on your own as well. These policies can overide your site preferences. Business policies can be found by clicking your "account" tab. You should see "business policies" in the column on the left.

[penguins_dont_fly]

@hippicker

There is a global setting in your Site Preferences.

My eBay>account tab>site preferences>shipping preferences

Exclude shipping locations from your listings... underneath the countries you can exclude,  there is a box for PO boxes

[berserkerplanet]

What is the item number of the item you are having the problem with?

(as others said, you have too many for us to waste time looking at them all, and the 3 I looked at show PO boxes blocked 273574269890 273583404086 273591036739)

And where is that screenshot from? I've never seen that view. Is it the quick listing form? If so, you might want to switch to the advanced listing form and revise and look at the listing again - maybe something is broken in the QL form exclusions code.

Excluding international locations would not affect PO box exclusions (unless a terrible code bug is in play).

[Anonymous]

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@hippicker wrote:

Title says it all, I hae a buyer attempting to purchase an Item and they're recieving an error message saying I do not accept purchases from PO Boxes. I googled for an answer and I was informed about how to check my shipping exclusion settings. When I went to look at them, PO Box was NOT checked and I left it unchecked. 

Is there some other possible setting that could be triggering the block?

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Hi @hippicker, while your shipping exclusions may not be blocking PO Boxes, there could have been a block in the past that was removed and updating your shipping exclusions would only apply to future listings. If there was a block previously and it was updated, any listings created prior to that update would not have changed. 

I recommend you go to this link: https://bizpolicy.ebay.com/businesspolicy/manage?profileType=SHIPPING to review any Business Policies you have for shipping. You may have older policies that are preventing shipment to PO Boxes. Cleaning up/updating these policies will update your active listings. If you continue to run into issues, go ahead and give us an update with some item number examples that we can review.

[a_c_green]

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@berserkerplanet wrote:
(as others said, you have too many for us to waste time looking at them all, and the 3 I looked at show PO boxes blocked 273574269890 273583404086 273591036739)

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Agreed; I see the PO Box exclusion when viewing the first example, at the end of a long list of excluded countries.

Pardon a dumb question, but when you're shipping via USPS Priority Mail (as in this case), how or why would anyone want to set up an exclusion for PO Boxes in the first place? I mean, I know UPS doesn't deliver to PO Boxes (according to their FAQ item here), but the OP is offering USPS services, not UPS delivery.

[berserkerplanet]

>>Pardon a dumb question,

Ooooh. I'll refrain from taking you to task on that

Maybe, legacy urban myth about PO Boxes being scam tools (which they were decades ago), misunderstanding that pkgs can be delivered to a PO Box (my PO box is a #1 3" x 5 1/2" x 14 3/4") not knowing they are held in the back of the PO if they don't fit, or listing was cloned from one that did offer multiple carrier options, and carried the setting along.

I think there is a lot of ignorance and FUD about PO boxes (and FedEx and UPS, and even USPS in general). For example, as you have probably already noted, I am enrolled in USPS Street Addressing and receive some of my UPS and FedEx deliveries to my little #1 PO Box. Only restriction is that those deliveries must conform to USPS weight (70lb) and size limits (although I suspect they might look the other way on the size parameters, but never pushed the limits).

So although I can't receive a 145lb box of steel parts shipped by FedEx Ground to the PO Box, I probably could receive a good sized truck bumper, or something like a surfboard that is larger than even the USPS PS 130" L+G limit - although that would have incurred the FedEx $80 oversize charge + horrible dim weight amounts (speculation that USPS would look the other way on that)


And yes, FedEx and UPS will not ship to/deliver to PO Box addresses - won't even let you create the label (but provide it with the street address of the PO with the PO box number as a unit number and it's all good.)

FedEx Smartpost and UPS Surepost CAN go to PO boxes because last mile is USPS Parcel Select, but eBay labels FedEx Smartpost does not allow PO box addresses for it even though it is kosher, and I don't believe UPS Surepost is an option through PayPal UPS. Both would have to be done though personal accounts assuming those accounts had those options.

[a_c_green]

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@berserkerplanet wrote:
>>Pardon a dumb question,

Ooooh. I'll refrain from taking you to task on that

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The correct answer is, "There are no dumb questions! Only dumb people asking them!"

No, wait...

[berserkerplanet]

That's the ticket! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-rGhMQn9Ls