New USPS Dim Shipping is a bait and switch nightmare
I never worried about the box size as long as my item was not going to need an oversized box. Things that were not oversized were shipped based on weight. So simple. I use all kinds of boxes and never know what I will have on hand when something sells. Now I have to go thru my listings and make sure they all have box sizes because they might be shipped based on weight OR they might be shipped based on size, even when using the standard size priority mail boxes! What a nightmare. If your inexpensive items are lightweight but need a standard 12x12x9 box you will be hit with DIM shipping fees which means your ebay percentage fees will be higher and you just might lose money on the inexpensive items. Its not ebays fault. It is the USPS. Just needed to rant as I spend hours making sure my listings all have box sizes.
yuzuha
·2 years agoNope. Dimensional weight does not kick in unless your box has a larger volume than a 12x12x12 box. I ship things in 16x12x8 boxes all the time and dimensional weight does not affect them at all.
fern*wood
·2 years agoThankfully I charge my buyers retail rates so my box sizes or lack of them hasn’t hurt me. I’m not going to bother revising my listings. It’s funny that eBay called me a few weeks before this started to try to talk me into offering online rates in my listings. Of course they never mentioned anything to me about this upcoming change.
sapphire_studio
·2 years agoIf you use calculated shipping just make sure the buyers are paying the retail cost not the commercial cost. That way the buyer cannot pay the cheaper cubic price you might have for a box that is listed smaller than it will be when you go to ship it. Cubic shipping does not exist in retail so all your buyers will pay what they were before.
Cubic shipping only saves you money and you really only have to worry about the box size being correct when you go to ship it. You are not going to get an oversized fee because cubic shipping has nothing to do with oversized boxes and nothing in that regard has changed.
So make sure you are not passing on your commercial savings to the buyer who is paying calculated shipping, and make sure your box size is correct when you purchase your label, and then you will be good to go. Enjoy the cubic savings!
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoThe threshold for dimensional weight has not changed; it's still 1 cubic foot.
What's new in rates is that eBay now offers postage labels for Cubic rates, for both Priority Mail and Ground Advantage. It's very confusing because eBay is automatically showing sellers whichever rate is cheaper (regular or Cubic) without telling the seller which one they have chosen to show.
Your rant should be directed to eBay, not to USPS, which has had these rates for many years but eBay chose not to share them before now. (Competitors like Pirateship have been offering Cubic rates for ages and apparently eBay noticed that many sellers were purchasing postage elsewhere, to take advantage of these better rates.) eBay has implemented Cubic rates in the most abrupt and confusing possible way.
So as you have noticed, if a listing has been set up with dimensions that are smaller than the box that was actually used, then the buyer might be undercharged. Likewise they buyer might be overcharged if you end up using a box that's significantly smaller than the dimensions you put in the listing. It's great to have these new rates which can save on postage, but eBay did sellers a great disservice by implementing them without any advance notice at all.
Priority Mail has cubic rates for volumes up to .5 cubic foot, and Ground Advantage has Cubic rates up to 1.00 cubic foot. So your 12x12x9 box (which has a volume of .75 cubic foot) will ship at the regular Priority rate but at the .8 cu ft rate via Ground Advantage.
One final aspect of this confusion: Cubic rates exist only for Commercial rates, not for Retail. So if your listings are set up to show buyers the retail rate rather than the eBay postage rate, the buyers can be significantly overcharged for packages which end up shipping at those nice low Cubic rates.
carne.kay
OP2 years agoThis is exactly what is happening. It is really confusing to choose which shipping to offer. If I don't list box sizes ebays size calculations and recommendations are sometimes completely off. That means I have to revise my listings and if I don't make the correct guess as to what size box I will have available when the item sells in 8 months, buyers will not be charged correctly. Not simple at all. Additionally, the size of the box that I use sometimes depends on the type of shipping the buyer chooses. Priority mail boxes are pretty standard. Ground advantage boxes are whatever I have available. The bottom line is that I have had several items where the buyer was undercharged for shipping and I need to fix it. Thanks for your clarification.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoYour listings seem to be charging buyers the retail rates, so even if the package dimensions are perfectly accurate, they won't be charged cubic rates. They might be overcharged but they won't be undercharged.
stainlessenginecovers
·2 years agoSomehow all my items are CHEAPER for the shipping label than they were before.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoSounds like all of your packages are under 1 cubic foot and shipping via Ground Advantage Cubic rates, or maybe .5 cu ft or less and going via Priority.