Does the new DIM for USPS affect Fedex Smartpost pricing?

[missalisa]

Does the new DIM for USPS affect Fedex Smartpost pricing?  If I offer Smartpost, will that be accurate, or is that going to change too?  I don't see any mention of that anywhere.  When shipping large and/or heavy packages in the past, occassionally I've found that Smartpost was a better option.  Is that over?  Does anyone know?

Or does Smartpost already use DIM?  I've had a few that I was charged after the fact, meaning ebay charged me a certain amount and then I was charge later for additional.  I never understood why, but was that a DIM situation?

I am trying to figure out if there is a viable shipping option for some of my large items or if I should just forget about trying to sell them.  I have a lot of cookie jars that must go into 12x12x12 or 15x12x12.

[dtexley3]

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@missalisa wrote:

Does the new DIM for USPS affect Fedex Smartpost pricing?  If I offer Smartpost, will that be accurate, or is that going to change too?  I don't see any mention of that anywhere.  When shipping large and/or heavy packages in the past, occassionally I've found that Smartpost was a better option.  Is that over?  Does anyone know?

Or does Smartpost already use DIM?  I've had a few that I was charged after the fact, meaning ebay charged me a certain amount and then I was charge later for additional.  I never understood why, but was that a DIM situation?

I am trying to figure out if there is a viable shipping option for some of my large items or if I should just forget about trying to sell them.  I have a lot of cookie jars that must go into 12x12x12 or 15x12x12.

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Smartpost uses DIM weights and has since Jan 21, 2018.

[missalisa]

Thank you for that information. I wasn't sure.

[berserkerplanet]

The USPS changes DO NOT affect Smartpost pricing.

Smartpost is a FedEx service where FedEx accepts the shipments, and transports them to the recipients PO, at which point USPS Mail Carriers perform last mile delivery via a USPS Parcel Select service.

The USPS leg is negotiated between FedEx and USPS in terms of amount paid to USPS for that leg of the service and other service parameters, and the shipper effectively has no interaction with USPS.

That's not to say that FedEx and USPS aren't going to rethink things, and that the contract terms are not going to change (they might, but don't have to), but nothing will likely happen, if at all, until January of 2020 when FedEx published new rates.

FedEx has been aware of the changes USPS was making for online shippers in terms of dimensional weight and Parcel Select for close to a year (likely longer), but those consumer facing changes didn't affect their Jan 2019 rate changes. No idea if the FedEx/USPS Smartpost agreements run Jan to Jan, July to July, etc or are even annual, so maybe the old contract was still in place in Jan 2019.

All depends on if USPS intends to apply dimensional weight to Smartpost in the next round of negotiations, and if so, how and when FedEx will change the SmartPost service and how much rates will increase (beyond the typical 5% annual increase).

That's all just educated guessing - FedEx could come out with a mid year change to SmartPost rates, but based on history I'd say unlikely. Even if they do, it won't be any worse than when FedEx incorporated dimensional weight into the Smartpost Service in Jan 2018 (now that I think of it, maybe that 2018 change was early preparation for a USPS change they knew was coming)

TLDNR;
The USPS dimensional weight changes do not directly, immediately affect FedEx SmartPost or UPS SurePost (or FedEx Ground or Express or UPS Ground or express services at all.)

It appears* that USPS Retail Ground (the pay at the counter USPS retail version of Parcel Select is not affected by the changes - dimensional weight does not apply to that service, but you'd have to go to the PO to use it, and it has problems with being restricted to Hazmat only or non-air shippable items to zones 1-4.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping-Returns/USPS-dimensional-weight-changing-in-June-notice-from-...