OT- USPS Shipping Increase Impact on Online Sellers
 

Just a heads up to Online and eBay sellers...

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m10/i19/s02

Jeff

Another tough pill to swallow.

They say a 10% rise in Priority rates, but with them doing away with Commercial Plus pricing using services like Ebay and Stamps.com, that jacks it up even further then what we are used to paying.

This one concerns me the most as someone who is used to shipping International:

First Class Package International Service rates would see an overall increase of 21.6%. "This is potentially devastating to small ecommerce sellers servicing international buyers," one industry player told EcommerceBytes.

In the last 5-7 years, International has already seen a near tripling in the cost of shipping a small package or parcel, so we become even less and less competitive on the international market, while countries such as China have vendors who can ship to the U.S. at almost zero cost to them.

If they want to recoup money on international shipping, they should do it on packages coming into this country, rather then packages going out.

Well, at least there's no increase on 1st Class Package shipping.

Pretty much my take exactly. I would think though that eBay, stamps.com, etc would be prime candidates for those individualized, "negotiated" rates, which could in turn be used as a marketing tool by those sub-vendors. It will be interesting to see how that aspect plays out, and hopefully take some of the sting out of the rate hikes, though I'm sure they will be painful regardless.

The rates are an effort to attempt profitability at some point. International rates still don't approach what it actually costs on pkgs to send them. UPS/FedEx announce rate changes as well in the 5% overall range. That's a yearly thing about this time of year except they're moving it back to October timeframe I think instead of the usual January.....or that's what I was told.

First Class Packages
 

First Class packages will be increasing by 12.8%

Someone explain this to me:

"News of USPS plans to raise rates for Shipping Services comes after FedEx and UPS announced rate increases for 2016 rates along with a rise in fuel surcharges that goes into effect next month."

Hey there Tom... & All,

October is the beginning of the Governments Fiscal Year(not really news)... A Friend of mine(who is the Post Master here locally) told me that this is the beginning of a biannual increase... She said that they are hoping to quietly structure the change into the system w/o to much negativity.
RiGHT!?!?

I still think that the USPS is one of the Good Government Flaws...
imho... very consistent, fast & of course... with a negative yearly income.
I am not a fan of the alternatives...
As a buyer... I would gladly pay the increases!
As a part time very small business owner, I feel the same about absorbing most of the cost for my customers...

Any cost increase sucks, but when you think about the service they provide it seems dirt cheap as it is.

I agree with this statement. I can ship cards across the country for a hair over $2. Still a great deal. So, I raise my first class shipping rate on eBay by a quarter and call it even.

From their own website: The Postal Service reported that operating revenue increased $569 million in fiscal year 2014. Offsetting this positive news, however, were legislative burdens and constraints that contributed to a $5.5 billion net loss in 2014. This eighth consecutive annual net loss underscores the need for comprehensive legislation to repair the Postal Service’s broken business model.
The net loss includes $5.7 billion for the prefunding requirement of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund and an additional $1.2 billion in non-cash workers’ compensation expense, consisting of $485 million related to changes in interest rates and $697 million of other non-cash workers’ compensation expense. These items are outside of management’s control.

Seems like a golden opportunity for some company! I'm kind of getting tired of subsidizing the good old Post Office.

Scott
 

Scott, you are not subsidizing the Post Office. The Post Office has not taken a nickel of tax money since the early 1970's.