Can FedEx shipping methods be suppressed when an address contains a P.O. Box in Hotcakes? - e-commerce

Question

We are wondering if in Hotcakes 1.10.3, if the shipping method lookup can recognize if an address entered is a P.O. Box before returning available shipping methods.
Why we ask - our client is primarily using FedEx to deliver shipiments, but would like to default to USPS shipping methods when a customer enters a P.O. box as FedEx doesn't deliver to P.O. boxes.
I've tried out a few PO box addresses, and in our current build FedEx rates still get returned. Is there any way to block FedEx from returning if a P.O. box is entered as an address in Checkout?
Thanks much.

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I work for Hotcakes.
I looked at this in our code base and it was interesting to see that we're simply taking the address entered by the customer in checkout and passing it directly to the shipping provider (e.g., FedEx). In my testing using FedEx specifically, they're returning rates from their own web service, regardless to whether the address is a P.O. Box or not. They don't seem to be checking for this themselves. I didn't check the other built-in live rate providers for this answer.
I order to workaround this, you can detect this yourself and prevent this from happening in your custom viewset. However, you should be aware that doing this would really require that you test all of the use cases that you expect for your target customers to fall into on your site.
In your viewset, find the Checkout.js file in the Scripts folder.
In this file, you'll want to look for the following method and apply a check to see if the Address 1 field is a P.O. Box or not. If it is, remove the FedEx rates from the list of shipping providers that received rates. This will prevent your customer from selecting unsupported rates.
RefreshShippingRates
An example of that check in this JS file might look like this:
var address1Value = $('#shippingaddress').val()
if (address1Value.substring(0, 4) == "P.O.") {
// iterate through each rate to see if it needs to be removed
}