Increase in Priority Mail (and Other Parcel) Rates Starting October 18--Supposedly Temporary

[jmgrobe]

"WASHINGTON – The United States Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) today of a temporary price change to take effect Oct. 18, 2020.

The planned temporary price adjustments are in response to increased expenses and heightened demand for online shopping package volume due to the coronavirus pandemic and expected holiday ecommerce. As a result of these changing market conditions, the Postal Service is planning a time-limited price increase on all commercial domestic competitive package volume from Oct. 18 until Dec. 27, 2020. Retail prices and international products will be unaffected.

The planned price increase would go into effect at 12:00AM Central on Oct.18, 2020 and remain in place until 12:00AM Central Dec. 27, 2020....

Priority Mail Commercial
Currently: Starts at $7.02
Proposed Increase: 40 cents

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0814-usps-announces-temporary-price-increase....

Thankfully media mail isn't mentioned.

[donsdetour]

If "temporary price adjustments" is like temp to windows: it means never going to go away; even after everything else in existence does.

[donsdetour]

And then there is this:

What all should be saying to the USPS:

WHY SHOULD WE PAY MORE WHEN YOU CAN NOT GET IT THERE ON TIME NOW???

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It just a price gouge for the holidays, is what it is.

Also:

If the politicians have there way by the time to vote the PO will be closed it seems.

[bugler1998]

My wife bought a transistor radio from Amazon at 4 pm Tuesday.  At 2:30 pm wednesday it was at her mothers house in south St. Louis.  That is the service the post office supplied long ago. 

I send enough packages out now I see as long as 30 days to deliver a priority mail package 1000 miles from St. Louis.  I see tracking showing packages first scanned in des moines Iowa, minnesota, des moines, st. Louis, des moines, chicago, then properly went on its way out west.

So by increasing priority mail costs, that will encourage fedex use.

[taylor_memorial]

We typically ship about a dozen priority mail packages a week. I haven't seen any complaints about non-delivery excepting maybe one slow one last March. Not sure--lots was closed back then and it wasn't a major problem so the memory is hazy.

Keep in mind that the USPS is giving a credit to those who use clik'n'ship to buy postage--it's a loyalty thing. Buy so much and get so much free postage later if you have a business account.

I can't get Retail A or B discounts available on eBay for stuff I don't sell here, so I buy a LOT of postage on that platform. As a brief look, if all I bought was large flat rate boxes, I would save about $!5 via the volume discount on PayPal v the credit back on USPS.com so changing habits if you buy on eBay isn't a good idea if all you do is large boxes.

If you do something else, do the math.  Simple: how many priority boxes to you send out at 8 or 10 or 12 a week and what would you lose to buy it at USPS to get the credit later? There will be some cases, I'm sure, where the discount here is less than the overall credit.