USPS Rural shipping rates
Summary: nittany-lion-trading inquired about handling USPS rural shipping surcharges, noting free shipping on many items but encountering higher costs for rural deliveries. mantle1951 and squinkercat59 suggested using calculated shipping to avoid issues, while 18704d provided a mathematical approach to adjust pricing. christworks shared a detailed strategy using flat rate and shipping tables, emphasizing the importance of customer experience and pricing psychology. Others, like beautifuljewelrynyc and aeparts1, offered alternative solutions such as using different carriers or raising product prices. The consensus leaned towards calculated shipping to manage cost variations effectively.
Is there a way to surcharge on usps rural shipping rates? I offer free shipping on most items and I'm finding about 25% are considered Rural. For instance, I had a Puerto Rico order for 3 oz mailer at $8.07. Non Rural is typically $5.25-$5.75. other Rural addresses are in the high $7 range. Do I add $3 to all my listings instead of free shipping? looking to see how other sellers are handling this usps surcharge
nittany-lion-trading
OP1 month agoI have over 700 Listings that are Free Shipping, so to revise all of them w Calculated shipping is not an option. I guess im just gonna have to raise prices across the board and see how sales go
theteamsetguy
·1 month ago@nittany-lion-trading ,
You can use the bulk listing tool to change all your listings at once to calculated shipping. shouldn't take more 1 minute.
nittany-lion-trading
OP1 month agoCalculated shipping is individual as each listing weight and dimensions are different
theteamsetguy
·1 month ago · EditedI would just buy like 3 or 4 different size boxes to use for you shipping.
You can estimate the weight by pounds. Should take to you more the a day or two to update all of them. You only have to it once. You can order boxes thru eBay shipping in bulk to save $$.
fern*wood
·1 month agoPlease don't make the same mistake I did when I used flat rate by not entering the weight/dims when listing. I found out that made changing things much more difficult down the road when I dropped the flat rate or free shipping.
I still find one of my older listings once in awhile with 1x1x1 as the dimensions.
mam98031
·1 month agoUse Calculated Shipping, just make sure that however you set it up, your information is accurate.
tsme35
·1 month ago · Editedebay's only suggestion is to charge buyer our discounted rate, their not going to do anything. Just have to set up a rule like HI and AK, after 7 weeks, doubt they will
vintage-camerastuff
·1 month agoWe keep our shipping rate at a price to cover the highs and the lows. Some items we lose a few cents but most items we make a few dollars.
authentic*vintage
·1 month agoI charge a flat rate average of shipping costs which I check weekly to ensure that I am still within the overall average - the herd method. Some pay more, some pay less, all pay a reasonable flat rate. It has actually increased my sales. This is the first summer in all of the ebay summers I haven't wanted to cry.
ruby_c_took
·1 month agoThis is also what I do for all my items under a pound. I don't think my method is quite as sophisticated as yours, but I take the median of the price range for each GA under 1 pound category and use that. I use calculated on packages above 1 pound. I have had pretty good luck with this, as I pay more than I charged for some orders, and less for others and so far I've come out either even or ahead. I personally have never had good luck with free shipping.
authentic*vintage
·1 month agoI actually charge the same rate across the board no matter the weight - it has been surprisingly consistent!
ruby_c_took
·1 month agoInteresting. Do you sell many small packets under a pound?
authentic*vintage
·1 month agoMostly but also over that
aeparts1
·1 month agoI raised my item cost so everyone pays more for the "free" shipping items. Hasn't affected sales.
beautifuljewelrynyc
·1 month agoI use FedEx for rural, $1 cheaper.
christworks
·1 month ago@nittany-lion-trading I use flat rate shipping combined with shipping tables. I have multiple flat rate policies. Everybody pays the same rate, but with the shipping table I can somewhat customize it by zone. I generally group zones together. I'm in Virginia, so east of the Mississippi pays one rate, along the Mississippi pays one rate, and west of the Mississippi pays another rate.
12% of my orders this year have come from rural zip codes. They make of 11% of total revenue for the year this far. That's a sizeable amount of revenue I wouldn't have if I nickled and dimed my rural buyers. That's inventory that would be still sitting on the shelf waiting for a non-rural buyer to purchase it. I share all of that with you as a baseline for how I am approaching this.
I've run a couple of tests. For the month of August, I changed items that weigh 12 ounces or less from $6.95 flat rate (regardless of zone) Standard shipping to .25 cents Economy shipping. I added $8 to the price of the items to make up for the heavy reduction in shipping cost. The .25 cents charge was really more of a marketing gimmick that started out as a mistake back in July. Those items actually cost more than what they did prior to the change.
My theory was by changing to Economy shipping I would have the flexibility to ship at the cheaper Economy rate to rural zip codes and upgrade the non-rural buyers to Standard. After my mistake in July when I accidently charged buyers a quarter for shipping on certain items, I purposefully did it here because in the past I've found I do better when charging for shipping than when offering free shipping. I also find that buyers who pay shipping seem to be a better group of buyers. That's my experience. Many people my age have positive experiences with the idea that something cost a quarter. From sodas out of a sidewalk vending machine to arcade games to public phone booths. 25 cents pricing is nostalgic, and that vibes with a lot of the vintage stuff I sell. The number of items sold from that weight class were up year over year in August by 28%. It was also up from July. I don't think there was a day that went by that I didn't sell 2 or 3 items in that weight class.
Prior to start of this experiment, my average rural postage cost for the year was $8.60. In one month I brought that down to $7.89. That's because of the approach I took in August.
For September, I ditched the 25 cent gimmick and those items are now Economy shipping and it is free. It has been a while since I've had hundreds of items set to free shipping, so I wanted to see how I did and whether it turns out better than my 25 cents gimmick. So far, it has been crickets. Not one item has sold from that weight class since I changed on Sept 1. We're still early in the month, of course.
squinkercat59
·1 month agoIf you add a surcharge for shipping, it's not really free shipping. Best to either build the extra cost into your listings across the board, or go with calculated so you don't have to worry about it at all. I've always just used calculated shipping and it saves a lot of headaches, especially when there are postal rate increases.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 month agoNo. There is no way.
thriftyfiftyfifty
·1 month agoI use Calculated Shipping and charge my Buyers the Retail Rate. Buyers in Rural/Excepted Zipcodes are transparent for me and I don’t lose shipping costs.
18704d
·1 month agoHi
If 1/4 of your listings get shipping rates that are $3.00 higher ... wouldn't you only need to add 75 cents (1/4 of $3.00) to the price of all your listings?
Mathematically speaking?
theteamsetguy
·1 month agoThat's correct.
mantle1951
·1 month agoBest way to avoid problem is to use Calculated shipping, get rid of Free shipping.