UPS has taken over the full delivery of UPS Ground Saver, aka Surepost.
No More handing off to USPS for the last mile. USPS is out if the picture on the UPS Ground Saver, aka Surepost.
No APO or PO Box deliveries for UPS Ground Saver/Surepost with USPS out of the loop.
Sounds like some significant price increases especially with the Delivery Area Surcharges (DAS) for shipments away from the mainstream delivery areas.
Stole this from an article:
Key Takeaways from the 2025 SurePost Changes
Hefty Rate Hikes on Lightweight Packages:
SurePost shipments within the 1-9 lb. range will see a 9.9% increase over current rates. This category, often favored by ecommerce companies shipping lighter items, faces one of the largest year-over-year jumps UPS has ever implemented.
Moderate Increases for Heavier Packages:
SurePost packages weighing between 10-70 lbs. won’t escape the changes either. Although the increases are smaller—ranging from approximately 5.9% to 7.1%—these still represent a significant cost escalation for shippers sending heavier items via SurePost.
Surcharges Surge Drastically:
SurePost Delivery Area Surcharges (DAS) and SurePost Delivery Area Surcharge Extended (DAS Extended) are seeing some of the most dramatic hikes:
DAS: Up roughly 61.8%, increasing from $3.80 to $6.15
DAS Extended: Up roughly 69.4%, rising from $4.90 to $8.30
wastingtime101
·1 year agoWe got this warning last year with FedEx drop offs, and eBay is now notifying sellers on the label page the same applies to UPS drop offs. Don't give them to USPS.
Bottom line: drop off your packages with the correct carrier.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@wastingtime101 it's finally official - and quite telling in my opinion they posted this on their investors page, not in a press release. 😂
https://investors.ups.com/
Also in my opinion pretty telling that they didn't put a date on when that page was updated to include that statement, just referenced the date it became effective.
The internet archive shows it wasn't there on January 2nd and I'm kicking myself for not archiving it at the time, but I visited that page on January 13th for other reasons and didn't see it then, so either way I'd say they can't claim they notified their investors, let alone customers, in a timely fashion.
carlmarxx
·1 year agoIt is interesting . I been wondering if shipping insurance issue played into USPS refusing to handle Sure-post and smart mail final delivery destination. because they refused to handle FedEx smart post about 2+ years ago and FedEx never gave any clear reason for the change .
wastingtime101
·1 year agoWhy would insurance be a factor? Once a package passed from UPS to USPS there was no insurance coverage.
wastingtime101
·1 year ago@lakefor94 - eBay announced price changes (link), plus added some helpful FAQ to the Seller Center page:
UPS 2025 rate increases will go into effect January 20, 2025. There will be an average increase of 5.4% for UPS Ground, and an average increase of 12.7% for Ground Saver. The UPS Ground Saver service has some new program updates, you can learn more on our Seller Center page.
https://www.ups.com/assets/resources/webcontent/en_US/Accessorial_Preview.pdf
lakefor94
OP1 year agoThanks for the updates @wastingtime101 . I am going to have to reevaluate my UPS carried items that are free shipping.
Don't want a whole lot of "oh ch!tt's" to start out the new year......
If you use UPS, all those links provided have solid information and other tools within.
robbie31415
·1 year agoThank you for this information.
I have updated my business policies.
Interesting PirateShip updated their help documentation for Ground Saver, but didn't send an email about it.
That's annoying since it's a pretty big change removing PO boxes from Ground Saver as Ground Saver was the one method that you could actually use almost any continental address with.
I will say the recent changes have caused issues with PirateShip, I've gotten over 50 Delivery Area Extended Surcharges tacked on post shipment.
However, I have successfully appealed all of them
wastingtime101
·1 year agoIt's not just PO Boxes, but also AK/HI, military addresses (APO/FPO), territories (PR, GU, etc).
I put that in bold for anybody reading so they can easily spot what they need to adjust on their shipping policies, exclusions, and service offerings.
It's not at all surprising @robbie31415 that you haven't seen a formal announcement from Pirate or eBay or anybody else. UPS hasn't published anything official on their site.
Pirate CS told me when UPS doesn't publish details about service changes, I have to go to UPS with questions and Pirate can't speak to it. The owner of a third party shipping provider (can't remember which one off the top of my head) revealed in a social media post the carrier didn't give them any notice. This is most likely why sellers were/are able to buy labels after the change took place. Platforms are scrambling to catch up.
robbie31415
·1 year agoSorry, yes those too but I don't have them for my economy shipping .
I only have to change PO boxes for economy.
And Pirate updated their website, I don't see why they can't send an email when they make changes to their own website.
robbie31415
·1 year agoAlso,
eBay needs to add PO boxes to the rate table, like Alaska and such.
That way you can NOT exclude PO boxes for an entire business policy, however, exclude it from certain services.
I don't get why I can exclude Alaska from Economy and Standard shipping rate table, and leave it only for expedited priority, but can't do the same thing with PO boxes.
This is a bad limitation of eBay's platform, unless I'm doing something wrong.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoI guess I'm more surprised that UPS hasn't published anything.
eBay rate tables date back to the dinosaurs. They are grossly lacking in capability. When you do shipping rate by "item" you can't even do an "additional" cost - like $7 for the first and $2 for each additional.
When you do shipping rate by "weight" you can set the cost then add a "per pound."
And you're correct, the "other" section includes AK/HI/military/protectorates but does not include PO Boxes. It should.
There are a lot of ways I'd revamp rate tables - I've put a lot of thought into that one.
robbie31415
·1 year agoI say more important now for the PO boxes to be added to the rate table.
Parcel Select has been discontinued as a shipping service.
Smartpost and Surepost are basically being changed removing USPS. (Which means no more PO boxes)
There are some other services, however, Media Mail seems to be the only real 'Economy' service that is capable of shipping to a PO Box on eBay's system.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@wastingtime101 I've been following this one pretty closely - while UPS hasn't published any explicit public statements, there have been a couple updates to the Surepost product page that allude to the fact that USPS is no longer part of the equation, including their infographics and network overview that now show delivery being handled through the UPS "Network of the Future" which is their multi-year, multi-billion dollar initiative to modernize the company's operations through automation, consolidation, and advanced technology launched last year.
New rates for Surepost were/are expected to go into effect January 13th and for now the rate tables still show APO/FPO/PO Box/AK/HI/PR etc.
I've seen speculation that UPS is holding off an official announcement until the last minute and will likely publish new rate tables without those areas on the 13th but it's anyone's guess at this point - and of course all of that goes for any of the services that are impacted by the non-renewal of the USPS contract.
Either way, UPS has handled this so poorly all around - shippers are scrambling for answers, drivers are struggling to keep up with the volume and the Teamsters may file grievances, and I have a feeling shareholders are going to have a message to send about it in the not too distant future too.
Meanwhile, USPS is over here lobbing clear shots across the bow (they didn't have to say UPS here...we all know that's who they were talking about 😂 )while hoping when the dust settles, they'll be getting more Ground Advantage volume.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoYep and those updates to the product page say nothing about excluding service locations, only shows USPS is out of the equation.
>>New rates for Surepost were/are expected to go into effect January 13th and for now the rate tables still show APO/FPO/PO Box/AK/HI/PR etc. I've seen speculation that UPS is holding off an official announcement until the last minute and will likely publish new rate tables without those areas on the 13th but it's anyone's guess at this point
Yes and that's a big part of the problem. UPS is not telling their customers need-to-know info about a major service change.
>>Either way, UPS has handled this so poorly all around
Agreed. It's not acceptable (putting it mildly) to keep customers in the dark about major service and rate changes with zero advance notice.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoYeah, and I don't think there was any notice. The contract ended and people were surprised when suddenly they couldn't ship to PO Boxes, military, territories, etc.
This is a pretty interesting article @lakefor94 :
https://parcelindustry.com/article-6433-Whats-Really-Happening-with-SurePost.html
lakefor94
OP1 year agoCopy that @wastingtime101 , that was the first article I read today after the call from my nephew.
Was also chatting today with the owner of the local UPS Access Point and their UPS driver said that they are no longer including 2nd Day Air as hot shipments, so to speak.
The driver only separates the Next Day pickups when he goes back into the distribution center. They get those off the truck right away and on their way.
The 2nd Day Air go in with the Ground shipments and are then sorted.
Before the New Year, 2nd Day Air and Nextday both had priority treatment at the DC.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoThanks for sharing - that's great info to have @lakefor94 . There are going to be a lot of trickle down effects from this.
We've seen the past few years how much the shipping landscape has shifted and I think this will have some pretty big impacts driving it in new directions.
lakefor94
OP1 year agoOn a side note, after talking to a family member today, his UPS delivery route went from an average of 150 stops per day to 200-225 stops per day. Being a 30 year driver, he has one of the cherry residential routes and instead of finishing work after about 8 hours a day, has been working 12-13 hours.....
Don't know for sure if that is all extra Surepost volume.
My UPS driver did comment that he is busier now than before the holidays.
lakefor94
OP1 year agoTalked to him again and he stated that it does not appear that there were any immeadiate driver/truck/route additions for handling all the extra Ground Saver/Surepost shipments at his Distribution Center in the Tampa Florida area.
Just work all the overtime it takes to get-r-done.
Also said they got a $2.75 raise last year, but the coming years of the contract are all locked in at $.75 per year.
I suppose that helps explain the Significantly higher UPS shipments costs I have been seeing in 2024. UPS used to be quite affordable in my business model, not as much anymore.
For anyone not comparing shipping costs on PirateShip, there can be significant savings on shipments to be had for both UPS and USPS, not on every shipment, but quite a few.
Easy to integrate eBay and import your eBay shipments to PirateShip. Also adds the tracking to ebay as well.
Just takes a couple of clicks to get started.
From what I hear, surcharge appeals are also easier to process on PirateShip.
nobody*s_perfect
·1 year agoMost PO Box holders can arrange to receive packages delivered by UPS and FedEx if they sign up for the USPS service called "Street addressing," which uses the street address of their Post Office.
There is no additional fee for this service, despite the USPS's use of the word "Premium." IIRC this service is not available to boxholders who have those free boxes which are provided by USPS for customers who are required to have PO Boxes because USPS does not deliver to their street address. Details here:
https://www.usps.com/pobox/customer-agreement-for-premium-po-box-service-enhancements.pdf
lakefor94
OP1 year agoA good question at this point might be: Has eBay limited the purchase of Ground Saver/Surepost labels to buyers with a PO Box address that qualifies for those deliveries?
If not, those shipments will be returned to sender, aka the seller.