Friendly Reminder - New Postage Rates Effective Today
 

Just thought I'd through out a friendly reminder that new postage rates went into effect today. 4oz first class package through Ebay went from $2.13 to $2.60.

DJ

Thanks - I hadn't heard about this. I ship many packages in the 1-3 oz. range. Has that price increased?

I ship mine pretty much exclusively 1 to 3 oz, and to my surprise today (and before checking this thread, of course), yes that increase applies to those weights as well

It seems that 4 oz and below are all set at $2.60 for USPS First Class shipping with tracking. There is no eBay discount until you get to 5 oz. This is painful as I was charging $2.25 for shipping on eBay. Now I have to charge $3.00. Ouch!!

Ugh

Yep, I had a few auctions ending today and I was caught off guard by the new prices.

Shipping
 

UPS and Fed Ex also raised their rates, and their increase was a higher % than the Postal Service increase.

The cheapest eBay discounted rate for a 4 oz package is $6.04 through Fed Ex and $11.25 through UPS. $2.60 from the Postal Service is still a good price.

For low priced single cards, your best option is still a 6x8 photo mailer. Put your card in a top load, put the card and the receipt in the photo mailer. As long as the height of the photo mailer is under 6 1/8", the photo mailer is considered a non-machinable letter. It will weigh a little under 2 ounces. So, you have the 2 oz letter price of 71 cents and the non-machinable price of 22 cents, so you just need to buy some 93 stamps and you are ready to go. The only drawback is that tracking is not available for letters.

I made up some labels to apply to the mailer just in case a postal employee somewhere along the line is not aware of the rules and tries to collect postage due at the package rate. This "non-machinable" letter rule was put in place 4 years ago to accommodate Net-Flix DVD's. You can get some good buys on eBay for the photo mailers, or try U-Line if you want to buy them by the case.

If I remember correctly, I got the idea for the labels when I purchased a card from someone - it may have been Mike Wheat, but I'm not 100% sure.



Rick

Great info Rick. Thanks. I was hit with the surprise this morning as well. 6 cent discount? I think that word should be surcharge.

My rates didn't increase quite as much as yours, but jeez mine took a 24.45% increase.

That's the highest percentage rate hike in my last 8 years of business and I had to increase my shipping cost because of it.

1-8 oz is 2.60. Now 1st class up to 16 oz from 13oz.

We still get charged a "fuel surcharge" by UPS here at work. Since prices are lower than they've been in a decade or more, when does this go away? :)

What is surprising, is that I can take all of my 4 oz or less mailings to the USPS counter and pay $2.54 versus the click and ship rate of $2.60 that ebay offers. Go figure.

Also, you can no longer purchase "1st class package" labels via the USPS.com website.....now a sender (who does not use ebay mailing, stamps.com, etc) has to make a trip to the USPS counter instead of using USPS's click to ship online option.

Go figure (again).

The (not so) funny thing here is that since eBay takes a cut of shipping costs collected by sellers, increases like this only give them more money. eBay is the only one who wins here. Sellers pay more in shipping and that cost is often passed on to the buyer.

In other words, I find it hard to believe that the increased prices upset them.

Funny, just before reading this post, I did a 4 oz. label via paypal, and saw the $2.60 !!! The slight increase does add up, BUT if it's now 2.60 for 1- 8 oz., it'll probably even out for slightly heavier packages.

I have only recently began selling on ebay again (the result of a basement purge) where I used to nail postage prices, I am now much to low. I actually sold one item for less than it cost me to ship.

I am puzzled by this (not saying you are wrong). The new USPS Price List (a/k/a USPS Notice 123) effective January 17th shows the RETAIL rate for a First Class parcel weighing up to 3 ounces to be $2.54 - yet, I was just charged $2.60 for a 3 ounce eBay parcel I am shipping - why is eBay charging more than retail?

Also, this new USPS Price List shows that the limit for First Class continues to be 13 ounces. I am puzzled as to where the new 16 ounce limit comes from. I think this link will work for this new Price List:
http://pe.usps.com/cpim/ftp/manuals/.../Notice123.pdf

Val

Rates
 

Wonder if I can get a 20% pay raise to match the cost of living rates that have gone up? GOOD LUCK!!! :mad:

Val: See page 13. Not sure what the retail first class at 2.54 is about and that only goes to 13 oz not the 15.999 oz . Can any postal workers explain the difference ?

Stamps.com is also at $2.60 up to 8 ounces, so it's not just Ebay.

There also seems to be a jump all the way up to $3.30 from 8 ounces to 9 ounces.

They also allow up to 16 ounces for first class.

Mike, many thanks for bringing Page 13 to my attention, as I hadn't looked at it. I have now compared this page to Page 13 of the previous edition of Notice 123, and I see that it has been reconfigured - there were 4 different prices for each weight, whereas now there is only one price. FYI, I was paying $2.04 for a 3 ounce First Class parcel (as shown on the old Page 13), which was a nice discount from the $2.54 retail price. I suspect the USPS has screwed something up and that a correction to Notice 123 will be forthcoming (perhaps to Page 1, which may now show incorrect retail prices).
Val

Weird??
I use the small flat rate boxes, it usually says PM 2-day for 5.95, well i sent a package out today and it says PM 1-day for 6.80...
SO what changed here??? Quicker mail delivery too with the hike??

Doubt it. Probably just an estimate based on location. Sometimes the Priority Labels say One Day for me, and sometimes they say Three Days.

Just mailed a small flat rate box out and the fee went from $5.95 to $6.80. Amazing that this happens when fuel costs are down nation wide. Hopefully the service will be better but I doubt it.

Ditto on airlines, which have saved into the billions in the past year, but still feel the need to charge me for carrying luggage.

Sent out a package to Peter the other day. I insured it, like most of mine i do. (flate rate box)
Well, the postmater noted that i be having '2' tracking numbers. She didnt know if it is a glitch or what.
Does anyone else notice this too???? Is one for the insurance and the other was for the package (which includes 50.00 insurance)

As bad as the domestic shipping rates increasing, the International First Class rate hike is unbelievable! I sell quite a bit to Canada, Australia, and the UK (especially when dealing with Hockey and Non-Sports cards)

A small 1 oz. package that several years ago cost about $4 to ship had increased to $7.10 a year or so ago but today that same package to Canada will run $9.50 and to he UK and Australia we are now paying $13.50 and $13.75, respectively. A near 100% rate increase, and they don't even deliver the packages, just hand them off to that country!

All this being said I have never understood why we expect the Post Office to be the ONLY Government Agency to be 100% self reliant and to break even (I often hear people complain that the post office loses money). No other agency is self-sufficient, of all the things our tax dollars are used for I have no problem with the post office being subsidized (sorry for the politics).

A big part of the rate increases you are seeing on small, light packages has to do with the changes to where the incremental jumps are set for packages. Previously, anything under 3 oz. was charged at the 3 oz. rate, in an incremental increase for each oz. above that. Now, anything up to 8 oz. is charged at the 8 oz. rate, with smaller incremental increases beyond that.

This means that the 2 oz. package that used to default to a 3 oz. package weight for $2.04 (using commercial base prices) now defaults to an 8 oz. package for $2.60. The increase has much more to do with the default weight than the rate increases. In fact, the 8 oz. package that used to cost $2.71 to ship now costs $2.60. Unfortunately, for many of the collectibles we deal with, package weights are often well below that 8 oz. threshold. Basically, I see it as the USPS saying that, for them to handle my shipment as a package, including multiple scans of a bar code on the package, the baseline cost to them is basically the same for a 2 oz. package as it is for an 8 oz. package. In other words, the cost of handling the package is weighted more heavily than the weight of the package itself.

As Rhett noted, the increases are even more dramatic on international shipments. I have been selling a larger number of photos (due to listing more Entertainment photos than sports) to overseas buyers lately, and what I used to be able to ship to Europe as a 4 oz. package for $9.18 now defaults to an 8 oz. weight (the minimum increment for a package) and costs $12.83. The price for an actual 8 oz. package only went up $0.50, from $12.33 to $12.83, but lighter packages are now even less economical to ship. I have had several buyers ask if there are cheaper shipping options, and a few who have sworn off buying from the U.S. altogether (and I have to figure for every 1 that has taken the time to write me to tell me they will no longer buy from the U.S., there are at least a dozen others who have silently made the same decision).

At the end of the day, it is what it is, and postage costs are a necessary part of doing business without a physical store front. I just wish that more buyers would realize that and increase their order sizes in order to spread that shipping cost across more items rather than 1-at-a-timing it until they get frustrated and stop buying altogether.

Yeah, International rates have killed me. Used to be a good portion of my sales and bids. Now it's just a trickle.

Meanwhile, Chinese vendors ship to the U.S., practically for free.

I've lost track of the number of times my wife has ordered some cheap widget or part off Ebay for just a few bucks, it takes forever to get here, my wife complains to me about Ebay being slow, I ask if she bought the part from a Chinese vendor, she swears she didn't, and then when the package shows up it's got Chinese tags all over it.

Meanwhile, I know she spent less on that entire package WITH shipping, then it would cost me to just ship that same package to the U.K.,......or back to China.

Holy crap, I don't know if it took awhile to get the new International rates in place, but I just noticed the following and got sticker shock.

Now it's a flat price of $12.83 or so from 1 oz, all the way up to 8 oz., then at 9 oz's it jumps all the way up to almost $22 bucks, and that's with commercial online pricing.

:eek:


That's nearly double the previous price for a 9 oz. item. That just about kills any sales of publications, books, or any non-photo or card items to International buyers.

What a dagger. :(

Doesn't help much with photos either, unless the price of the photo itself is cheap enough to justify the shipping expense (which means the seller isn't making much off of it, in my case).

Yeah it sucks, but at least with photos you can pack around 5 or 6 pretty securely and keep it under 9 oz..

A single magazine or program, that generally sells for no more then a lower end photo, now costs 22 bucks on it's own.

You can't use the cheaper flat envelope rate either, if you are using any sort of rigid material to protect your items from damage.