Boxes for cubic shipping: How critical are dimensions?
I'll resume selling soon and I want to use Pirate Ship's cubic shipping option. I've got a question about cubic shipping in general for sellers who have experience with it.
How sensitive is USPS to oversize boxes?
I'm asking because some of the boxes that would be most useful to me are right on the edge of a size boundary. One is 14x6x4 inches = 0.19444... cu ft. Another is 9x6x3 inches = 0.09375 cu ft.
If one of these boxes actually turns out to be 0.20035 cu ft or 0.10008 cu ft, is USPS going to send it back for insufficient postage? Or will they think the box is obviously supposed to be under the limit and let it pass?
If oversize boxes are a problem in this sense, how do you deal with it? Are there particular vendors that you've found you can rely on? Or do you just have to use a smaller size or pay for the next larger size?
iamalwaysright
·3 years agoI say the only thing you can do is give it a try and see if you end up getting an extra charge with the USPS APV. I know Pirateship has a notification setting that you can enable that sends you an email whenever you received an extra charge for something underweighted or undersized. I think so far I’ve gotten one of these charges this year but it wasn’t due to cubic dimensions, it was something I had at 8oz that USPS says should’ve been 12oz.
Also know that the “leniency†on cubic dimensions would probably be pretty dependent on the regions the package passes through.
rfmtm
·3 years agoRemember a bump out in the box, or even an out of square box, can be caught by the scanners as going over to the next higher dimension.
Cubic Rate is calculated as follows:
Cubic Box OD = L" x W" x H" / 1728 Round Down all dimensions to lowest quarter inch before calculation, then Round Up the result to the next .1 cubic foot.
Cubic Max OD = 0.500cu ft
Cubic Max Weight = 20#
Cubic Max Length = 18"L
I have started a spread sheet to input my standard and modified box sizes to auto calculate the best price rate, which is often better than Regional, and certainly much better than going to a larger Priority Flat Rate box than needed.
Note there is also Cubic Priority for envelopes and Cubic Parcel Select.
bitsofsiliconvalley
OP3 years agoA few comments on the replies to far.
I 'm asking about the P.O.'s tolerance for slightly oversize boxes for a given cubic size. For example, one series of rates applies to a box that is 0.2 cu ft or less. A box that is slightly over 0.2 cu ft must pay the rate for 0.3 cu ft.
I'll explain my question with an example. Consider a box whose nominal dimensions are 9x6x3 inches, and whose nominal volume is 0.09375 cu ft, but whose actual volume for whatever reason is 0.10008 cu ft. I'm asking whether the P.O. will accept that box with postage for 0.1 cu ft, or return it for insufficient postage.
This doesn't concern the limit of 1.0 cu ft (1728 cu in) for the largest volume the service allows. It doesn't concern surcharges for extra-long dimensions.
sapphire_studio's response is on point. I'll feel better about relying on it, though, if a few other sellers report the same experience. (Sapphire, this is not meant to be a reflection on you. Let's say I just want to be sure you're not reporting your experience with a post office that's unusually lax.)
Regarding free boxes: I save some of the ones I get and use them when I need an odd size of box, since it isn't practical to purchase boxes of every size I might conceivably need. Otherwise, I buy. My time is too valuable to spend driving around to beg or scavenge used boxes from stores. (I hope yours is too, if you value it properly.) Even if that weren't so, the added difficulty of storing at lot of randomly sized boxes, matching them to the items I sell, determining their volume, figuring out how to pack them securely, etc., would negate the advantage of "free." And it's unlikely anyway that stores get many boxes in the sizes I normally use. (See my original post.)
an-57470
·3 years ago"My time is too valuable to spend driving around to beg or scavenge used boxes from stores. (I hope yours is too, if you value it properly.) "
Not how its done.
Boxes are picked up during regular errands and shopping trips I am already making.
When I am already shopping in DollarTree and one or more employees happen to be restocking shelves all one has to do is ask "Mind if I take the boxes?". Simple grab the box full of folded boxes they have and put it your cart with your items. If its lot of boxes then grab a second cart.
I've previously asked to get boxes from a Family Dollar store's recycling dumpster 15 years ago. I know the day on which a contractor will pick up their outside cardboard only dumpster so when I am on a regular shopping trip I simply pull my vehicle next to the dumpster and get a whole station wagon or pickup load of boxes at once.
When I regularly shop in Menards for both business and personal items my journey will already take me down a extra wide aisle where they place items to restock along with two wheeled carts for boxes. I don't need to ask at all as these are going back to the compactor. I simply place them the cart I am using or in another cart.
When I am shopping in Wal-Mart I grab the flats off the shelf. These are the cardboard trays than can goods and other are displayed in. These are great for sorting inventory and they work great for shipping as putting two of the same sized boxes together makes a perfect box for books. There are also stockers in the aisles with regular boxes.
Since stopping at these locations also involves picking up boxes for a business the mileage is also deductible.
"Even if that weren't so, the added difficulty of storing at lot of randomly sized boxes"
Rather simple. They are sorted by small, medium, large, and extra large. They are already in a flatted state from the store and stood upright on shelving like books so I can simply grab one.
"matching them to the items I sell"
With three decades of experience that takes nothing more than looking at the boxes on the shelf and obviously grabbing one that is big enough for the item plus packing.
"determining their volume"
I use shipping software to upload items. If the item is shipping USPS there is no reason to even enter the size of the box unless it larger than a cubic foot or exceeds 22" in length. That applies to 99% of items I sell.
I don't need to calculate the volume since I don't offer Cubic rates in the listings. Customers are charged the USPS retail rate, while I pay I commercial rate, with the difference paying the FVF fees. eBay currently does not show Cubic rates in the listing or allow you to print Cubic labels. Customers are simply refunded any large differences between the regular rate and Cubic rate.
If you are putting Cubic prices in your listings then you will have use the maximum possible shipping cost for a particular Tier in the listings since you have no idea where a buyer is located. You will also have to account for eBay's FVF on that Cubic rate by increasing the amount of shipping by the FVF fee or the price of the item. That means every time rates go up you will need to edit your listings.
"figuring out how to pack them securely"
It takes no more time to pack a free box than a boughten one. Since free boxes come a lot more variety of sizes it saves a huge amount of time as I don't have to cut down a box or make a Frankenbox.
With three decades of experience there is nothing to figure out. I can visualize exactly how an item is going to be packed in my brain and then immediately get the materials required. Its all muscle memory at this point. I pack items while watching TV.
"And it's unlikely anyway that stores get many boxes in the sizes I normally use."
That is strange because I have hundreds of them ranging from small ones that you can use as internal packing inside a bubble mailer to very large ones that you can ship steamer trunks in. Dollar Tree tends to carry smaller boxes while other stores like Menards have small to large. Furniture stores have very large boxes that you can use to create custom boxes or used for internal box sheaths / wraps.
"A box that is slightly over 0.2 cu ft must pay the rate for 0.3 cu ft."
They may decide to charge you a regular rate for the box since the Cubic rate is suppose to be a commercial rate product delivered to USPS without any additional labor required by a clerk other than scanning it and placing it in cart for a contractor to pickup. For instance, we got a discount on the hundreds of invoices we sent each day at the wholesaler I worked for as these were all presorted in USPS trays and shipped in bulk.
"I'll explain my question with an example. Consider a box whose nominal dimensions are 9x6x3 inches, and whose nominal volume is 0.09375 cu ft, but whose actual volume for whatever reason is 0.10008 cu ft. I'm asking whether the P.O. will accept that box with postage for 0.1 cu ft, or return it for insufficient postage."
Package verification are primarily automated. I recently had my first package in nearly 25 years selling online get flagged by UPS. Clearly no one checked the actual box but they relied on their automatic system which said the box length and height were wrong. I appealed the decision and won because the item was shipped in a large USPS carton used to ship flat rate boxes to your home. I also told that with so many years of experience I don't make such mistakes, especially with two dimensions on the same box.
This can depend on how well you pack your items. Time and time again I see so called eBay experts on YouTube overpack a box with packing materials. When a box is taped shut it actually rocks back in forth because the bottom and / or top of the box is bulged outward from being overstuffed. That means the box is no longer its official listed height but taller. A box with a 1/4" bulge on the top and bottom would now be 1/2" taller than its specs. So when packing boxes be sure to pack them properly with straight sides and not bulging ones. That is just as important for larger boxes that fall under dimensional rates.
1728 x 0.10 = 172.8
Assuming two dimensions are exact the third one would have the following maximum dimension to still be considered as a Tier 1 package.
172.8 / 6 / 3 = 9.6
172.8 / 9 / 3 = 3.2
172.8 / 9 / 3 = 6.4
Dimensions are rounded down to the nearest 1/4" so the following boxes would be Tier 1:
9 11/16" (9.6875) x 6" x 3"
9" x 6 3/8" (6.375) x 3"
9" x 6" x 3 3/16" (3.1875)"
bitsofsiliconvalley
OP3 years agoThank you for pointing out the step of rounding down to the next 1/4 inch. That does resolve the issue I raised.
I don't want get into an open-ended debate about free boxes, but the "rather simple" process for you described for getting them is exactly what I was referring to when I said my time was too valuable to mess with that. I could point out various other difficulties with the idea (for example, I don't go into stores since the pandemic started, for reasons that are based on my household's medical situation) but what it boils down to is that you're willing to spend more time to avoid spending money than I am. That's not something I can criticize; you choose what's right for you, and I'll choose what's right for me.
an-57470
·3 years ago"you're willing to spend more time to avoid spending money"
I am walking down a aisle in DollarTree because I am already shopping for items for personal use and business. They already have one or more boxes full of flattened boxes sitting right there on cart. I ask the employee standing there if I can have them and then put the whole boxes full of flatten boxes in my cart. Thats less than 1 minute of my time in the store and another 1 minute to toss them into my vehicle. If I need to walk to the front of the store to get another cart that adds another minute. Another few minutes to take them out of vehicle and put them in the storage bins for different sizes - this done by grabbing bunches of them at a time. So for a few minutes work I get $50 or more in free boxes.
Now if I visit the local Family Dollar's recycling dumpster after shopping there it takes a minute to drive to the dumpster, get out of my car and start loading as the dumpster adjoins the parking lot. I typically get a station wagon or pickup load of boxes there at a time, which takes 5-10 minutes as I am grabbing them in large bundles. Looking at 5-10 minutes to put them away as they tend to have multiple sizes - small, medium, large, and extra large. Maybe 20 minutes for well over $100 of boxes.
But the time spent getting the boxes is really a moot point since I save a far greater amount of time by having these boxes on hand. If you only use free USPS boxes and / or a few boughten sizes then that limits what you can do. You will be spending time cutting down boxes and making Frankenboxes out one one or more boxes to create a bigger box. Not me, I just grab one off the rack and start packing. I actually save lots of time (money) in addition to the purchase price of the boxes. Getting the free boxes creates more time. You have to learn how to think out of the box.
bitsofsiliconvalley
OP3 years agolax, I tried to click "reply" and eBay told me I had just selected your post as the best answer. Totally involuntary, and there's apparently no way to correct it. Your earlier post about rounding down actually was the best answer, and I'm sorry I didn't select it at the time.
All I can say about your last long post is that your business must be so different from mine that it doesn't even make sense to me.
The items I sell are effectively unique, but the majority of them are similar enough that they have only a few form factors. For the most common one, I need a box that's at least 12 1/2" long, 5 3/4" wide, and 3" high. The standard size 14x6x4 fits this well. Its volume is 0.19444... cu ft. This is important (and my original question was important) because 0.2 cu ft is a boundary between two weight ranges for Priority Mail Cubic shipping. The larger one costs about $10 more to ship across the country.
Now, out of my "inventory" of scavenged boxes, how am I going to find one 14" long, 6" wide, and 3" or 4" high?
Maybe I've set aside a room for storing boxes and invested hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours in carpentry, and I actually have a bin for each possible size of box... most of which will be empty most of the time. More likely I have a few bins for ranges of sizes, and I must rummage through the right one for the size I need. (This assumes that I determined the exact size of each box when i got it and put it in the right bin.)
More likely I can't find what I need, and I face the prospect of spending $5 or more to ship in a bigger box, or cutting down a bigger one, which will take more time in addition to what I sent measuring them calculating their volume, and binning them. Or maybe I can't find a usable box at all, and I have to use a bigger one. It's unusual for stores to have boxes anywhere near as small as the ones I need.
And I'd have to go through this for each item I sell. No.
Add to this the facts that:
1. Due to a family member's medical condition I generally do not go into stores, and doing so just to scavenge boxes would expose us unnecessarily to a potentially fatal infection. (I know this would not apply to everyone.)
2. If I ship in used boxes I might as well include a note in each box that says, "Dear buyer, I want you to know that I am an amateur." (This one does.) I am an amateur seller, but there's no reason I can't act like a professional.
gtpickett
·3 years agoI just received a USPS charge from Shipstation for a priority box mailed with the cubic rate. According to the report, the dimensions were correct, the weight was less and I owed an additional $6 plus. The only thing I can figure is the USPS APV program cannot distinguish between a cubic rate box and a regular priority rate box. Or, ShipStation is not making the correct zone calculations. I am going to try to dispute the charge. Anyone else experiencing this problem? It would help if eBay would implement a cubic rate calculation, but I am not sure that would help much with the post office APV program.
rfmtm
·3 years ago@gtpickett There should not be a problem, as it would appear the APV did scan it correctly if it shows the dimensions and weight are equal or less than on the label. So I would check ShipStation to see if it produced the correct label in the first place.
The only other thing that may have happened is if you used a Flat Rate box instead of a regular or regional priority box by mistake.
an-57470
·3 years agoDon't forget you can also modify regular Priority Mail boxes (not flat rate) for Priority Cubic.
Before you go off any buy a bunch of boxes are there any stores you can get them for free at?
Does your state have a waste exchange program for businesses where they can give away unwanted materials, such as boxes and other packaging materials? The example program below is from Iowa.
https://www.iowadnr.gov/environmental-protection/land-quality/waste-planning-recycling/iowa-waste-exchange-iwe
In nearly 25 years I've only bought two small lots of boxes and those were for reboxing parts I had bought at a auction that had damaged boxes. All packages have been sent via free boxes form stores and from USPS.
sapphire_studio
·3 years agoI have rounded down by a quarter of an inch to stay within the lower cubic category and it's never been a problem for me. I feel like along time ago I remember they charged me once for it being too big but I probably was over half an inch.
deserdog
·3 years agoAlso remember for cubic shipping, you round DOWN to the nearest 1/4". So a measurement of say 6 3/8" would be 6 1/4".
mybigsale
·3 years agoYou are fine with boxes under 1728 cu inches. If Length X Width X Height is 1728 inches or less, you are fine. Except, USPS has recently added additional fees for boxes over a certain length:
Here is a breakdown of the USPS surcharges, and the length thresholds for when they kick in:
USPS Non-Standard Fees | A Guide to Understanding the New USPS Surcharges - Shipping School
mybigsale
·3 years agoEdit: I just realized this answer is not for "cubic shipping" - but regular shipping. Cubic shipping, I would stay within the exact measurement limits. Close is fine - just not over.
nobody*s_perfect
·3 years agoThe rates you quoted are the ones that went into effect last spring when the surcharges were introduced. Since then, several of them have been adjusted.
mybigsale
·3 years agoThanks... just got below info from USPS site. Looks like over 2 cubic feet charge jumped from $15 to $25 extra fee.
nobody*s_perfect
·3 years agoThose are the correct charges for retail Priority Mail. For Parcel Select Ground, retail First Class packages and Retail Ground, the surcharges are $4, $7, and $15, respectively.
http://pe.usps.com/cpim/ftp/manuals/dmm300/notice123.pdf