Some carriers can't deliver to PO Boxes or Parcel Lockers.

You can create an Automation Rule to identify these addresses and automatically assign them to a suitable carrier and service instead.

In this example, we'll identify PO Box addresses and assign them to an Australia Post service.

⚠️ Important: Once an Automation Rule has run against an order, the changes cannot be undone through Automation.

We recommend creating new Automatic rules as Inactive, then using Dry run to check which orders will match before making the rule Active.

Go to Settings > Automation and click New Rule.

Enter a Title that makes it easy to identify what the rule does.

For example:

PO Box orders – Assign Australia Post

For Type, select:

For a new Automatic rule, leave Active turned off while you set up and test the rule.

Turn on Stop after this rule so that no rules below this rule are applied when a PO Box order matches. We'll explain where to position this rule below.

Click Add Condition Group.

For this example, we want to identify orders where the delivery address contains PO Box.

Select Shipping Address.Full Address as your trigger and set the condition to:

Is a P.O. Box Address

ReadyToShip will now identify orders containing a recognised PO Box address.

⚠️ Important: The Is a P.O. Box Address condition recognises different ways a PO Box address may be entered, including P.O. Box, PO Box and P O Box.

Click Add Action and select Assign Carrier and Service.

Click the Carrier and service dropdown and select the Australia Post service you want to use for PO Box deliveries.

The dropdown contains the carrier and service combinations available through your connected carrier accounts.

Note: Carrier and service are selected together. You don't need to select them separately.

Click Save, then use Dry run to check which orders match.

Check that PO Box orders are being identified correctly before making the rule Active.

If the correct orders are returned, set the rule to Active.

ReadyToShip will now automatically assign your selected Australia Post service when a matching PO Box order is imported.

You will need to create a separate rule for Parcel Locker addresses, as the Is a P.O. Box Address condition does not identify Parcel Lockers.

Select Shipping Address.Full Address as your Trigger.

Set the condition to Contains and enter:

Parcel Locker

in the Value field.

Click Add Action and select Assign Carrier and Service.

Click the Carrier and service dropdown and select the Australia Post service you want to use for Parcel Locker deliveries.

If you have other Automatic rules, the position of your PO Box or Parcel Locker rule is important.

ReadyToShip checks Automatic rules from top to bottom.

If you have rules that assign packages, place these before your PO Box or Parcel Locker rule so the required packages can be applied first.

Then place your PO Box or Parcel Locker rule before any other rules that assign a carrier and service.

For example, your rules may be ordered:

For the PO Box rule, turn on:

Stop after this rule — no further rules run when this rule matches

If the order is a PO Box address, ReadyToShip will assign the Australia Post service and then stop checking any rules below it. This prevents another carrier assignment rule from changing the carrier or service afterwards.

If the order isn't a PO Box address, the rule won't match and ReadyToShip will continue checking the rules below it as normal.

Tip: The same setup should be used for your Parcel Locker rule. Place it after any package rules, but before other carrier assignment rules, and use Stop after this rule to prevent the shipping service from being changed later.

See Set the priority of Automation Rules for more information about rule order and Stop after this rule.