Ground shipping remains the people’s favorite in the U.S. It’s fairly economical, highly reliable, relatively faster, offers various shipping options, and covers more ground than any similar service. Singularly, the FedEx Ground shipping service is bestowed on business owners by FedEx. Solely constituting to the major portion of FedEx shipments passing through every day. Each and every shipment requires a different approach altogether. It’ll be more fruitful to add in a couple of special options while finalizing shipments. Luckily, FedEx Ground offers assorted facilities keeping your business interests in mind. It’d be unjust to shun them without considering the possible aid to your business. In this article, we will guide you to FedEx Ground and how to use it in the U.S. and Canada. To keep things interesting, we have listed the features and benefits that fall right after. So read along and find out more.
What is FedEx Ground service?
Founded in the year 1985, Roadway Package System was introduced as a leading small-package shipping company. Followed by the acquisition of the Caliber companies by FDX Corp. in 1998, it was later rebranded to FedEx Ground in January 2000.
- Since then it has improved its transit times for most of its domestic shipping locations. Making its delivery much faster than UPS Ground.
- With recent investments in high-tech facilities, it has automated most of its workflow. Resulting in continual improvement in speed, efficiency, and reliability.
- FedEx Ground manages to deliver packages within 1–7 business days. The delivery timings differ based on the distance between you and your customer’s location.
- Each delivery is backed up by their money-back guarantee, clearly displaying their level of commitment.
FedEx Ground service details
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Delivery Timings |
FedEx Ground delivers within 1–5 business days within the contiguous U.S. It can take 3–7 business days to and from Alaska and Hawaii. The deliveries are attempted by the end of the day. |
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Working Days |
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Delivery Area |
The delivery is available to all 50 states in the United States of America. |
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Package Type |
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Delivery Exceptions and additional information | FedEx Ground cannot deliver to P.O. boxes. No hazardous materials to or from Alaska and Hawaii (see hazardous materials). Service for remote Alaskan locations and the Hawaiian islands of Lanai and Molokai is inbound only. FedEx Ground allows the package recipient to be invoiced directly for the inbound shipments. This way you can control the costs and avoid charges added by your suppliers. |
What is FedEx Home Delivery?
- FedEx Home Delivery is a sub-part of FedEx Ground that deals with residential deliveries. So shipments that have to be delivered to your customer’s home address fall under this category.
- Please note the shipping prices, in this case, tend to be slightly higher than FedEx Ground. That’s because FedEx trucks and vans have to reach customers’ doorsteps for the final delivery.
- Many e-commerce shipping solutions allow store owners to define the final address as a residential address. In WooCommerce, for example, you can do that with the help of the WooCommerce FedEx Shipping plugin. We will discuss more on this later in the article.
Does FedEx Ground support Collect on Delivery?
Yes, it does. FedEx Ground designates the amount of money that a FedEx driver collects from the recipient when a package is delivered. However, FedEx Ground Collect On Delivery is not available with FedEx Home Delivery.
- If the FedEx Ground driver collects guaranteed funds, or a company and/or personal check, the payment is sent directly to the shipper via U.S. mail.
- If cash is collected, by the next business day, FedEx Ground issues a check to the shipper in the amount of the cash collected. The FedEx-issued check is sent to the shipper using the U.S. Postal Service.
- The shipper must designate the type of payment to be collected by FedEx Ground.
Does FedEx Ground Support FedEx One Rate
No, it does not. Neither FedEx Ground nor FedEx Home Delivery supports FedEx One Rate. And only the standard rates are applicable. To show this, we selected the FedEx One Rate for a shipment weighing 1 Lb.
Going ahead with the sample shipment shown above, you’ll find the following services supporting FedEx One Rate. But sadly, FedEx Ground shipping service is not applicable in this case.
When should you use FedEx Ground?
- FedEx Ground can be used to ship all kinds of shipments. It doesn’t matter if you have a large or small item. But of course, that doesn’t mean you can ship freight shipments.
- You’re not allowed to ship hazardous materials to and from Alaska and Hawaii. This makes more sense as such materials require more attention which usually leads to a bump in the shipping price. If you want to ship such items, you may make use of the other FedEx Express services that are specialized in doing that.
- Coming back to the point, small business owners selling small to medium-sized items could use this service. FedEx Ground proves to be really cost-effective if you use your packaging. You can also use the weight-based packing method which eliminates unnecessary price calculation.
- The WooCommerce FedEx shipping plugin allows users to pack their items based on the package weight. You can know more about it here.
FedEx Ground Service Map
FedEx offers something called the FedEx Service Map. It’s basically a virtual online map which is designed to get an estimated delivery time for your shipment(s). It displays the day of arrival of your packages and can prove to be very useful in many cases. If you go to FedEx’s website, you can enter the zip code of your current location. Thereon, you would be able to see the delivery timings based on the states. In the image below, we’ve entered the zip code of New York and have set the country to the US. You can see various color-coded regions with specific time zones. These regions display the time taken by FedEx Ground to deliver packages to each individual states. At the bottom, you could see colors that represent transit days. In the case of Ohio, for example, FedEx would take approximately 2 days for the delivery.Can you use FedEx Ground in Canada?
Of course, you can.- FedEx Ground operates really well inside Canada. In fact, the shipments from the United States to Canada undergo FedEx Ground. This is a special case where the FedEx Ground operates out of the country.
- Luckily, things aren’t dramatically different in Canada for FedEx Ground as it’s usually the case with other services. Meaning, unlike FedEx Ground, other FedEx shipping services transform and have a few features reduced here and there.
Exploring FedEx Ground in Canada
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Delivery Timings |
The delivery is cost-effective, even for large shipments. While the delivery timings remain the same ranging from 1 to 7 business days. |
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Working Days |
By default, FedEx Ground operates from Monday to Friday. Sadly, neither Saturday Pickup or Delivery is available for this service, just like in the case of the U.S. |
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Delivery Area |
The delivery is available to all provinces and territories across Canada. |
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Package Type |
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Special Delivery Options |
All FedEx Ground shipments are supported by FedEx’s Money-Back Guarantee. |
As you can see FedEx Ground operates in a similar fashion when compared to FedEx Ground service in the U.S. You can read more on this on their official website.
Comparing shipping rates with UPS Ground and other FedEx services
FedEx Ground rates are significantly cheap compared to other FedEx services. The prices are even cheaper than UPS Ground service in a few locations. To find out the exact difference, we should take an example and calculate the shipping prices for the same. Consider you need to ship an item weighing 3 Lbs from New York to Georgia. Let’s go to the official FedEx rate calculator and find out the rates.
As you can see FedEx Ground is much cheaper when compared to FedEx Express Saver, or any other service for that matter. The price difference is more than $10 and the delivery time isn’t that bad. Now let’s compare the rates with UPS Ground for the same shipment under the same shipping scenario.
As you can see the rates are slightly higher when you plan on shipping with UPS Ground.
Does WooCommerce support FedEx Ground shipping?
Not by default. You won’t find the necessary settings under the WooCommerce shipping to enable the FedEx Ground service. But with the help of WooCommerce FedEx Shipping plugin, you can add this feature. This way you will be able to configure your FedEx account, have live FedEx Ground shipping rates appear on the storefront, generate and print shipping labels for your shipments, and display real-time order tracking to your customers. Here are a few things you should know about the plugin:WooCommerce FedEx Shipping Plugin with Print Label
The WooCommerce FedEx Shipping plugin with Print Label is the #1 FedEx shipping plugin for the WooCommerce store owners. It is an automated shipping solution which provides,- Live FedEx Shipping Rates for domestic as well as international shipments
- Support for FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, FedEx SmartPost, and FedEx SameDay shipping services
- One-Click FedEx Label Generation and Download for Bulk Orders
- Live FedEx Shipment Tracking from within the WooCommerce store
- Support for Commercial Invoice and FedEx Pickups
Things you need
Since you will be using the FedEx services online, you need to get an online account. There are two types of FedEx accounts—Developer account and Production account. The developer account allows you to test the packages in a testing scenario. FedEx won’t generate any order and you can print as many labels as you wish. If you need to get hands on the FedEx developer credentials, then check out the guide. Production account, on the other, is something we call live account. Basically using this type of account, you can order a shipment delivery from FedEx and print shipping labels. Please note that you will be charged by FedEx for the shipments and labels. Here’s how you get the credentials for your FedEx account.How to configure FedEx Ground service on your WooCommerce store?
Once you have installed the FedEx shipping plugin on your WooCommerce, you need to further enter the FedEx credentials in. Have a look at the following image.How to show FedEx Ground rates on your Cart/Checkout page?
As soon as you finish configuring the plugin with your account, you need to go to the Rates & Services tab and scroll down to the list of services. Here you can select FedEx Ground as shown in the image below. Now let’s go to the Cart page and try placing a domestic order. We are using the FedEx Ground in order to ship this sample item.How to generate packages for FedEx Ground from your WooCommerce back-end?
The process is quite simple. Once your customer places an order, WooCommerce will notify you with a New-order email. When you go into your order page, you should be able to see the new order. When you go in this order, you should be able to see the following screen. As you can see in the image above, the order contains the shipping service name right under the product name “Stuffed Toy“. Like mentioned earlier, we are using the FedEx Ground service, and the corresponding shipping rate can be seen next to it. You can scroll below and click on Generate Package which will generate the package show the further option to create the shipment. Have a look at the following image. Here, you can enable the Saturday Delivery option which will enable the Saturday delivery for this service. You can even add enable Cash On Delivery option and add additional packages to the order if required. These features are really useful when creating order and can save a lot of your time.How to print shipping labels for your FedEx Ground packages?
Once you have reviewed your order and generated the packages successfully, you can now click on Create Shipment. Doing this will place an order in your FedEx account requesting to deliver this order. FedEx, in return, will validate the request and if everything is good, they will give you the corresponding shipping label(s). You can now print the shipping label by clicking on the Print Label option as shown in the image below. Also note that you have the option to Void the shipment, which can be used when you want to cancel an order. Now if the customer’s location is a residential location, you would be able to print the FedEx Home Delivery shipping label. Here’s a sample label you can check out.Conclusion
This article covers FedEx Ground and its functionalities. It also covers how you can make the best use of WooCommerce FedEx Shiping plugin with Print Label. The plugin is the best tool to accomplish all your shipping needs with ease. It covers all the FedEx shipping services availability, live shipping rate calculation, label generation within the WooCommerce store, live shipment tracking, and much more!If you have any query regarding this article or the integration of WooCommerce FedEx Shipping plugin, feel free to share your views in the comment section below. We will be more than happy to help you understand how this plugin can work together in fulfilling your shipping requirements. And if you have any query regarding the plugin or WooCommerce shipping then feel free to contact our customer support. They should be able to help you out.
