USPS Proposal to raise rates on July 12th
Summary: The discussion revolves around the USPS proposal to raise rates starting July 12th. mam98031 brings up concerns about the misuse of media mail for packages that don't qualify, noting that some sellers do it because penalties are not strictly enforced. This has led to a dialogue about whether switching to media mail is worth the risk due to potential federal charges for mail fraud. christworks provides insight into shipping partnerships, particularly explaining how eBay does not negotiate rates directly with carriers but does so through Pitney Bowes, contrasting it with platforms like Poshmark and Mercari. There is also mention of potential changes in eBay's shipping policies and comparisons with other platforms, focusing on the flexibility and challenges sellers face with shipping labels. Throughout the discussion, participants express differing perspectives on shipping strategies and the future direction of eBay's policies following these proposed changes.
Weird that not a lot of people are talking about it. USPS just came out with their proposal a few weeks ago and it's not looking good if you sell small light items under 15 oz especially if it less that 8 ounces.
The proposed change will do away with tier based ounce pricing and now it will just be one price for small/ light ground parcels depending on what zone it goes to. Picture below is for commercial rates. Retail rates are much higher.
With what USPS is proposing how are you going to handle light items shipments? Are you still going to offer free shipping or will you change it to buyer see the price for shipping and pays for shipping to their zone?
USPS index files link if anyone is interested: https://pe.usps.com/PriceChange/Index
krazzykats
·4 months agoCheap, fake stamps are hitting the Postal Service hard and adding to their losses. It’s not just rising gas prices driving up costs—the misuse of Priority Mail supplies is another big factor, so ultimately, all customers will end up footing the bill through higher prices.
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martin2001
·4 months agowhy don't they stop providing free supplies, instead of raising rates? I don't think that's a major cause of price increases
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoOn another online selling forum which is primarily Amazon sellers, but includes many who also sell on Ebay, a proactive suggestion was made by an experienced seller.
Many items which will be affected by the increase in cost associated with low weight items which ship via Ground Advantage. Some of those items qualify for Bound Printed Matter postage.
Before I go on, hard core Amazon haters should probably stop reading.
Amazon owns a shipping service, Veeqo, which offers USPS and other major carrier's shipping.
Amazon sellers have been able to purchase BPM shipping from Amazon for years. BPM usually requires a permit to use it. I am not aware of anywhere else a shipper without a permit can buy BPM.
BPM is limited to bound items, staple bound, glue bound or sewn. No looseleaf or single sheet. Details are on the USPS website.
It ships at about the same speed as media mail. It has no insurance. It differs from media mail, in that undeliverable items are not returned to sender unless the package is marked to be returned to sender if underliverable.
Veeqo is charging me, $3.95 for BPM to all US zones.
Veeqo has a rebate on every parcel shipped during your first 60 days, and selected services after that.
It integrates with Ebay, importing orders and marking them shipped. It is a little extra work.
It can be used to ship via Media Mail for shipments that qualify but are not in a category where Ebay offers MM.
For some of us, it as another tool which can help keep our shipping cost down. It will not help every seller.
I will not name the Ebay seller who had posted about this on the other forum, he does not usually frequent this forum.
christworks
·4 months ago@knasupply eBay currently has commercial rates but they are not negotiated rates, which are the type of commercial rates exempt from the changes you've posted about.
eBay dropped a new User Agreement on Thursday. If you have not read it, you should. There is a lot of noise in other threads about it and a lot of freak out. It is my belief, based on the revised User Agreement, eBay will finally have negotiated rates with USPS. This is likely in response to the very changes you are talking about and also the general near constant rate hikes. The possible down side is that this means eBay will start managing the shipping labels if you choose to use eBay labels. That isn't automatically a bad thing.
We don't know the full details of how it will work or what the rates will be. My guess is that it won't be mandatory, and you can use labels from a 3rd party, like Pirate Ship. You'll have to include the shipping cost in the price of the item. For those who want to use 3rd party labels, it will be some work for people who use calculated shipping. Not nearly as much work for those of us who use flat rate and free shipping.
Be thankful these changes are happening now and not in the midst of Q4.
Things change. It's not the end of anybody's business unless you let it be. You may have to change some things to make it work for you, but it is definitely doable.
mcdougle4248
·4 months ago@christworks
I have been searching on Google high and low, and all I am finding is speculation or AI-generated content that is not consistent (imagine that).
Do you have a link you can share regarding this comment in your post above? "eBay currently has commercial rates but they are not negotiated rates, which are the type of commercial rates exempt from the changes you've posted about".
christworks
·4 months agoeBay does not negotiate rates with any carrier. eBay is partnered with Pitney Bowes. They are parterned with eBay and many other commerical companies who need shipping and logistical services. Pitney Bowes uses that leverage to obtain commerical pricing for eBay. This is why when you print your eBay label, they aren't branded eBay but rather Pitney Bowes. eBay uses their tech and logistics to sell labels to eBay sellers. Pitney Bowes is the middle man, who eBay has to pay, which makes eBay's rates not as friendly as other platforms.
A good comparison is a health insurance marketplace. An individual shopping alone has little bargaining power, but when thousands or millions of people are grouped together, better rates can be negotiated. eBay brings the shipping volume, and Pitney Bowes helps manage the relationship, technology, and logistics needed to turn that volume into shipping services that most individual sellers could never obtain on their own. Because Pitney Bowes has many other clients (many smaller than eBay), they are able to use that leverage to obtain commerical pricing for all of their clients because they can guarantee a certain amount of volume coming from their logistics.
This is different from platforms like Poshmark and Mercari. Those companies negotiate their shipping programs directly with carriers and then offer those rates and labels to sellers. This is why on Poshmark I can ship anything up to 5 pounds in any size box I want to any zone I want. If I go over 5 pounds, I can buy an oversized label for $5 or $10, which will allow me to ship a 10LB or 15LB package. On Poshmark buyers pay that initial shipping cost. It is a flat rate, no matter where they live. I think it is currently $6.95. $6.95 to ship a 5LB package to anywhere in the country! Now, if i am selling a 4oz item, is $6.95 a good deal? Probably not. I don't put that kind of stuff on Poshmark. I would if Poshmark allowed for me to buy my own shipping label elsewhere, but unlike Mercari, they do not give you that option. You have to use their labels, but the pricing is excellent for anything a pound or more. The icing on the cake is the free Ground Advantage supplies you get.
In eBay's case, there is often an additional layer in the process, with Pitney Bowes handling parts of the postage, tracking, and logistics infrastructure. Sellers on all three platforms benefit from volume discounts, but the path to obtaining those discounts is not necessarily the same.
To bring this back to recent developments, there is pressure on eBay and all of the carriers to get pricing under control. Amazon is entering the market to provide third-party shipping services for businesses. It is only a matter of time before they approach eBay about a partnership.
Amazon and eBay are what I would call hybrid competitors. They compete on contemporary items and everyday necessities, but you generally cannot go to Amazon and find a one-of-a-kind item from 30 years ago. Because of that, there are areas where the two companies could potentially work together despite competing in other areas.
The user agreement being updated does not mean these changes will happen right away. eBay tends to like to test things, even if they have rolled out programs elsewhere. Something as significant as this I think will be tested, and then rolled out to all users. I don't think it will be mandatory. I think it will have a similar look to the Mercari framework, where you have multiple carrier options and you can choose whether to use Mercari's labels or provide your own label.
At the slightest change and before all the informatoin is out, you have sellers, some of whom have done this for decades, ready to jump off a cliff. It makes zero sense to me. The world is not ending. I think there is the real potential here for this to be a win-win for everybody. As long as eBay allows sellers to buy their labels elsewhere, which I'm sure they will, then outside of perhaps needing to make some adjustments to include the shipping label cost in the cost of the item, this shouldn't be anything more than an inconvenience. I just hope if they are going to launch it for everybody, they do it in advance of Q4 or wait until Q1 2027.
mcdougle4248
·4 months ago@christworks
Thank you. This is going to be tough for me.
mam98031
·4 months agoThings may have changed or may be changing, but as far as I know, no one, no site was or has been able to negotiate Media Mail, 1st Class Mail or Ground Advantage. Let me qualify that to be sites like Ebay or on line postage providers. They have only been able to negotiate PM, Express and higher ranked services.
Now those that ship a from a specific location like Amazon does from their warehouses around the country can negotiate more rates because things are shipping in quantity from specific locations. But those negotiated rates do not apply to sellers on Amazon that do their own shipping.
mam98031
·4 months agoI'm not sure any site similar to Ebay can make purchasing shipping labels mandatory only from them [Ebay] since they are doing the actual shipping. Amazon can't do it and if anyone could, they most certainly would. Just an observation.
1786davycrockett
·4 months ago@mam98031
"I'm not sure any site similar to Ebay can make purchasing shipping labels mandatory only from them [Ebay] since they are doing the actual shipping. "
Bonanza tried that a few years ago, and it totally back-fired on them.
They ditched that idea within a year.
Not that that has been of any help to them for quite some time.
powell-collectibles
·4 months agoI guess a lot of people are just going to switch to media mail.
frugalmarketplace
·4 months ago@powell-collectibles
Was that a joke. Most items don’t qualify
selsa84
·4 months agoWhen times are tight you gotta think outside the box, or padded mailer!
powell-collectibles
·4 months agoNo, that was not a joke. People are already using media mail for things that they shouldn’t. What do we think happens when the price disparity grows even more? Four dollars and change is going to look a lot better than eight dollars and change.
selsa84
·4 months agoIf it fits it ships.
mam98031
·4 months agoUntil you are caught and have to pay the difference. Suggesting others do something that is illegal isn't the answer or even something that you should do here. And USPS can levy penalties against an offender too. Repeat offenders can be charged with a federal crime of mail fraud or something else. It can be a huge risk to do this.
I would recommend just increasing your pricing instead.
powell-collectibles
·4 months agoGood Lord – I’m not recommending that someone does it. But to pretend that it doesn’t happen and that it can’t be mentioned seems a little bit silly.
It happens because the penalties aren't significant. I haven't misused media mail, but you see posts on occasion on these boards about it. Some sellers seem to use media mail for whatever they want. Some sellers use it for things that don't qualify, but they don't realize they are doing something wrong. I think it happens because there isn't a concerted effort at the USPS to stop the problem. Heck, I don't know how big of a problem it is. I'd think not huge if the USPS isn't cracking down on it.
Regardless, it would be interesting to see if anyone has ever faced serious charges for misuse of media mail. Just one example.
carlmarxx
·4 months agoI would like eBay to get deal with UPS for the Smart mail shipping which is simpler to the USPS's old First class shipping for items under 16 oz's . I have couple seller friends that use Pirate shipping and said that it has started UPS shipping an noticed the rates cheaper side . Sound's to me Pirate shipping has UPS smart mail option .
mam98031
·4 months agoI'm not "pretending" anything. I simply made an observation of what you stated and stated some facts about doing it that some may not know about.
Some sellers have abused USPS over the years, there is no doubt of that. We see it on the threads from time to time.
"It happens because the penalties aren't significant." I have no idea if that is true or not and I'm certainly not willing to test it to find out.
mcdougle4248
·4 months ago@mam98031
Welcome back! Nice to see you around again 😊
mam98031
·4 months ago@mcdougle4248
Nice to be back, thank you.
bgt_masters_of_tiki_d
·4 months agoOuch it doesn't seem long ago you could send a 3 oz item for $1.87. I know gas has gone up but such an increase in such a short period of time is a bit absurd. Basically everything under a lb is now what it used to cost to ship something a lb. Looks like I'll have to start using calculated shipping for a high percentage of my smaller items and if they don't move just stop offering them to my customers.
bonanza125
·4 months agoI personally expect costs to go up twice a year. Yes I will still offer free shipping. Just increase prices by $1 and hope I get multiple sales to one buyer. It will all work out.
kibble-net
·4 months agoAny increase in costs will be passed onto my buyers. I use calculated shipping, and you probably should too, seeing how frequently prices are going up lately.
Cue the endless threads blaming USPS for being greedy when they themselves are simply passing along the increased cost of fuel.
jaina_solo
·4 months agoWell in the past I just raised prices a bit when rates increased but I guess I will have to go to calculated shipping. What a huge pain to have to change everything.
frugalmarketplace
·4 months ago@kibble-net
The USPS isn’t greedy , it is the height of poor management and stupidity.
We are subsiding all the junk mail that is shipped..…total mismanagement. The last time the USPS made a profit was in 2006.
👋👋👋👋👋. To answer the question I will have to go to calculated shipping. A few years ago I could ship a lipstick anywhere in the US for less than $4…This is a bad joke.
martin2001
·4 months agothey also increased rates during covid, never decreased back to pre-covid. I bet $1000 that when the prices starts going down, which they will, the rates won't come down. These are just indiscriminate increases. Because of thier weight brackets, they are ripping off the customer, you mail a 4.1 oz item and pay for an 8 oz item. It's time to make the weight brackets in 1 oz increments.
mam98031
·4 months agoOh that was a troublesome time for so many reason. Mid 2020, Trump appointed Dejoy as the Postmaster over all of USPS. He started the 3 times a year increases. January, July and October. And you are right, it always appeared that the October increases were temporary, but come January the rates met or exceeded the October rates.
jaina_solo
·4 months agoMost of my items are under 8oz with "free" shipping so this would be a huge loss for me. 😞
knasupply
OP4 months agoYep same here. We sell a lot of small items for your car that are under 8 oz. We are going to change our 8 oz and under items to buyer pay shipping and do away free shipping for those items.