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For merchants on a Premium subscription with Returnly, our system can support the integration of your own FedEx Ground Economy (formerly SmartPost) account for return shipping label generation.
The difference between FedEx Ground Economy (formerly SmartPost) and FedEx Ground (which Returnly also supports) is that with FedEx Ground, FedEx controls the package the entire route, from pick-up to drop-off location. FedEx Ground Economy packages are picked up by FedEx, but are handed off to another carrier (usually a local USPS facility) for the "last mile" leg of the delivery.
There are pros and cons to either one, as you can imagine, as it can involve differences in a variety of factors, with two examples being delivery speed and cost. It is up to you to decide, if you haven't yet, which service you prefer, based on your customer's needs.
FedEx Ground Economy vs FedEx Ground
- FedEx Ground Economy is typically more cost effective than FedEx Ground (up to 18% less)
- Because there is another carrier involved, Ground Economy delivery times can be inconsistent
- Because there is another carrier involved, FedEx cannot guarantee the package
- Saturday delivery at no extra cost
- USPS will deliver to PO boxes; FedEx normally does not
- No FedEx surcharges for residential delivery
Configuration
Setup
In order for the FedEx Ground Economy integration to be appropriately configured, we will need your team to reach out to our Merchant Care team at support@returnly.com with the name of the Returnly instance you wish to integrate your FedEx Ground Economy account with. In conjunction with your outreach to the Support team, your team will need to fill out our Carrier Integration Form with the requested account information. The FedEx Ground Economy specific fields are below. In order to some of the required fields, please refer to this article.
Timeframe
Once the Support team has received an email from your team and the account information via the form it can take up to two weeks for the integration record to be created, tested, and applied within your Returnly instance.
For merchants seeking to leverage FedEx Ground Economy the reason the time for enablement is extended is that Return Services need to be enabled with your FedEx Account Representative and EasyPost, our carrier account integration partner. If Return Services are not enabled within both FedEx and EasyPost, then we will not be able to successfully generate return shipping labels.
Billing
When a merchant leverages their own FedEx Ground Economy account for return shipping label generation the price of the label at the time of generation is $0.01. Because of this FedEx Ground Economy label configuration merchants should ensure their Returns Policy for return shipping costs is configured to Free Returns or a Flat Rate (per Label) or Flat Rate (per Return) configuration, as seen in the screenshot below.
This will ensure that customers are having their Refund Due amount reduced appropriately. If you do choose to leverage a Flat Rate fee, either per label or per return, the flat-rate amount will be reflected within the RMA Report.
Please note that Returnly will not be invoicing you, the merchant, directly for the FedEx Ground Economy labels generated through our system. These labels will be billed directly to your payment method within FedEx at the time the label is scanned at drop-off.
