USPS Rate Increase (Sept 16 2024) - based on zip codes, not zones | Shipping

Posted 1 year ago·Last reply 1 year ago

35 comments

buyselljack2016

·1 year ago

Today I ran my past 50 sales.

Of those sales 8 were to Zips on the list.

4 were GA 8oz

3 were GA 12oz

1 was GA point 1 cubic 15 lbs

If I look at purchasing another label for these listings the only one that shows different is the GA cubic.

I paid $5.90. Now wants $6.83

---------------------------

Beyond the 50

Checked another 4 lb GA to zone 6. Price increased from $9.89 to $11.19

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@buyselljack2016 wrote:
Today I ran my past 50 sales. Of those sales 8 were to Zips on the list.

4 were GA 8oz / 3 were GA 12oz / 1 was GA point 1 cubic 15 lbs

If I look at purchasing another label for these listings the only one that shows different is the GA cubic.

That is because the eBay rate for packages 1-15.999 oz is equal to the USPS commercial rate. There is no additional discount. Therefore today's increase does not affect GA packages under a pound as the previous rate is already equal to the published commercial rate.

buyselljack2016

·1 year ago

So, for all practical purposes it is a non-issue for me as I mostly sell/ship under a pound.

I know there can be some variations (eBay/Pirateship a bit below commercial) with the 13-15.99 but did not have any of those in my 50 that were to "the chosen" Zips.

Over the pound I just need to use calculated, or flat rate that covers (or averages out) for all zones.

2010*minky

·1 year ago

2457 View listings

I thought Ebay would adjust our listings automatically to account for the rate rise. A listing sold last night a few hours before midnight. The shipping price rose almost $2 from what the customer was charged, and it took me awhile to realize what happened. Looks like there was a Twilight Zone of a few hours before the listings would reflect the new rates. So my customer paid the old rate, and I must ship & pay the difference. Here's hoping it was a one-time glitch.

lacemaker3

·1 year ago

4, 3, 2, 1 ... Earth below us, drifting, falling ... Floating weightless, calling, calling ...690 View listings

@2010*minky wrote:
I thought Ebay would adjust our listings automatically to account for the rate rise. A listing sold last night a few hours before midnight. The shipping price rose almost $2 from what the customer was charged, and it took me awhile to realize what happened. Looks like there was a Twilight Zone of a few hours before the listings would reflect the new rates. So my customer paid the old rate, and I must ship & pay the difference. Here's hoping it was a one-time glitch.

Sorry, if your listing sold yesterday before midnight, that was Sept 15, before the shipping price change went into effect. Any listings sold and paid before Sept 16 would be charged the old price. Unfortunately, that's how it works when shipping prices change. Not really a glitch, but predictable.

nobody*s_perfect

·1 year ago

@lacemaker3 wrote: .... Any listings sold and paid before Sept 16 would be charged the old price. ...

Yes, the new rates hadn't gone into effect when the buyer paid.

A $2 price jump is a bit much. USPS hadn't explained how much the increase would be, so this is a useful tidbit of information.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

A few entries into the eBay shipping calc and we can see how this is working.

Shipping from any zip code to affected zip codes we are seeing USPS published commercial rates.
Shipping from affected zip codes to non-affected zip codes we are seeing the deeper merchant rates negotiated between USPS and eBay (that answers the question I asked @kyle@ebay upthread).
Shipping from any zip code to non-affected zip codes we are seeing the deeper merchant rates negotiated between USPS and eBay.

Here are a few specific examples:

90210 CA to 01005 MA (affected zip)

Dm 10x10x10
Wt 5 lb

Ground Adv $14.16 = commercial rate

90210 CA to 02108 Boston

Dm 10x10x10
Wt 5lb

Ground Adv $13.44 = discounted merchant rate

01005 MA (affected zip) to 90210 CA

Dm 10x10x10
Wt 5lb

Ground Adv $13.44 = discounted merchant rate

Edit to add: I ran some tests to see if affected zips have the benefit of cubic rates. They do, but they are the USPS published commercial cubic rates. Ex: dm 6x4x4 wt 10 lb Bev Hills to MA = 0.10 cu Grnd Adv to zone 8 = $8.47 vs non-cubic $19.76

So that part is good, at least.

I still think this was a bad move by USPS to make it zip code based instead of zone based. Way too confusing and makes it much harder to manage - especially for those on eBay that use rate tables.

valueaddedresource

·1 year ago

5 View listings

Thanks for sharing that info @wastingtime101 !

It looks like they are doing commercial rates across the board for everything affected by this change as I'm seeing discussions in the Etsy community as well with sellers confused by the fact that a Medium Flat Rate box is now showing either $15.19 or $16 (commercial rate) for labels printed there, depending on if the order is shipping to one of the zip codes on the list or not.

I understand why/how it can still be called "Priority flat rate" even if that rate might now vary when you go to purchase the label (because of the differences between published USPS rates vs negotiated discount rates for 3rd party providers) but from what I'm seeing online it would appear many don't get that distinction.

Like you said...just too confusing all around and apparently Etsy didn't even give their sellers a heads up like eBay did so it's a real mess now.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@valueaddedresource wrote:
apparently Etsy didn't even give their sellers a heads up like eBay did so it's a real mess now.

I saw that. Etsy totally failed their sellers on that one.

2010*minky

·1 year ago

2457 View listings

Well, I rounded up that number; really it went up only $1.38. Not a big deal for one sale, but I had forgotten we were due for a rise, so it took another cup of coffee to figure out what was going on. Hurray for this Community resource! I'm assuming the listing shipping calculator will now be showing the actual shipping price to the customer from here til...the next increase.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

Mark your calendar @2010*minky because USPS will be implementing the holiday season surcharge in a couple of weeks so you may see a similar issue of a price discrepancy between weekend orders and shipping labels going out on the following Monday.

This will always be a problem as long as you charge buyers the online discounted rate instead of the retail rate with no built in handling fee or cushion of any kind.

Charging buyers the discounted rate also means you will lose money on every single shipping label every single day unless you account for eBay fees on ship cost with either a handling fee or an increase to your item prices.

kalyoth

·1 year ago

1116 View listings

USPS may find out hard way once it goes to Congress what the definition of small is. 1/3 of the US does not fit the definition of small & this may violate the mandate they operate under for equalized pricing for their services. Will be interesting.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@kalyoth wrote:
this may violate the mandate they operate under for equalized pricing for their services.

These rates are strictly affecting third party postage providers that traditionally have deeper discounts.

Public-facing retail rates are zone-based and not zip code-based as this change will be.

valueaddedresource

·1 year ago

5 View listings

@kalyoth wrote:
USPS may find out hard way once it goes to Congress what the definition of small is. 1/3 of the US does not fit the definition of small & this may violate the mandate they operate under for equalized pricing for their services. Will be interesting.

@kalyoth go back and read the previous posts.

It's not USPS that said it will have a "small" effect, that was eBay's wording - and they were talking about transactions, not zip codes.

As to equalized pricing, it appears this is only being applied to Competitive Products like Priority and Ground Advantage, not Market Dominant products like Media Mail and it's also a change in the negotiated service agreement rates for third party providers, not a change to published retail or commercial rates directly from USPS, which means the oversight and approval process is a bit different.

Doesn't mean I like it or think it's fair, but it's important to look at the facts as they are.

the-movie-man-plus

·1 year ago

3039 View listings

Update!

I read the announcement incorrectly.

Been up all night and got ahead of myself when reading it. All I saw was price hike and I started seeing red.

Goodnight

nobody*s_perfect

·1 year ago

@the-movie-man-plus wrote:
I love how it says only a small percentage of Zips are affected. Only to find out it's 17,810 Zip Codes. So I did a search, the number of Zip Codes in the United States, of which there are currently 41,642 Active Zip Codes. ... it's like just over a third of all Zips in the country that are now affected. Not really a small percentage like we are led to believe.

17,810/41,642 = 0.427

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@the-movie-man-plus wrote:
I love how it says only a small percentage of Zips are affected.

That's not at all what it says @the-movie-man-plus .

I did the math and approx 42% of zips are affected. But these are lower population areas, generating smaller amounts of sales/shipments, which is why the announcement said:

"this increase affects a very low percentage of transactions"

I take that to mean eBay did the math and the amount of sales to these zip codes is minimal. I've seen eBay use the term "very low percentage" only when it's a truly low single digit %. No idea if that applies here, but I'm making an educated assumption based on past updates from the past 5 years where eBay provided stats when asked what "very low" meant.

valueaddedresource

·1 year ago

5 View listings

@the-movie-man-plus wrote:
I love how it says only a small percentage of Zips are affected. Only to find out it's 17,810 Zip Codes. So I did a search, the number of Zip Codes in the United States, of which there are currently 41,642 Active Zip Codes. So in actuality this isn't a small number that is affected like the post mentions. Because if you took 41,642 and divided it by the number of states, 50, you get 832.8 Zip Codes per state or rounded up you get 833. So if you take the aforementioned 17,810 Zip Codes and divide it by 50, the number of states you will get 356 Zips of 833 that are now affected per state! Really it's like just over a third of all Zips in the country that are now affected. Not really a small percentage like we are led to believe.

@the-movie-man-plus it doesn't say only a small percentage of zip codes are affected.

It says only a small percentage of transactions will be affected.

As others here have indicated, many of these zip codes are in rural or less populated areas.

We have no way of knowing exactly how eBay's overall buyer demographics break out geographically but it's likely that those areas make up a very small percentage of the overall buyer base here.

So while this change appears to affect ~43% of US zip codes, it is entirely possible that it will only impact a small percentage of transactions on eBay as the announcement claims.

na_833338

·1 year ago

A couple of weeks ago I can remember seeing some sort of announcement from the post office about rural zips seeing more delays in delivery times as the post office implements new policies, but it didn't mention anything about rate increases.

A postal clerk at my local office told me that within the next 12 months, we will notice an improvement in delivery time for the area I live in. I guess if it gets better for the urban populations, something has to get worse for rural areas. A change in focus to please the larger communities, I guess.

It's likely more details will emerge that will create more chaos in the mail delivery system. I also recall the announcement mentioning that it wouldn't affect mail-in vote ballots in the coming election. We will see how that works out. It will be interesting to see what changes with eBay.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@na_833338 wrote:
A couple of weeks ago I can remember seeing some sort of announcement from the post office about rural zips seeing more delays in delivery times as the post office implements new policies, but it didn't mention anything about rate increases.

This is a merchant rate increase @na_833338 - it affects online third party postage providers like eBay, stamps.com, etc

It's not a rate increase at retail so your post office won't know about it unless they follow changes related to third party shipping providers.

1786davycrockett

·1 year ago

5692 View listings

@wastingtime101

Sneaky.

Isn't this the THIRD postal increase for 2024?

Still room for a few more, I guess. . ..

oaklandmaryland

·1 year ago

2389 View listings

there is always one in October and then for Christmas too

buyselljack2016

·1 year ago

@oaklandmaryland wrote:
there is always one in October and then for Christmas too

I'm thinking that the October one covers Christmas.

buyselljack2016

·1 year ago

Only 17,000+ Zips affected.

Guess I will have to write them down, so I know why the cost is higher ðŸ¤£ðŸ¤£

12345jamesstamps

·1 year ago

8692 View listings

Yes...I read about this a while back.

It's basically small towns or small like rural areas.

Items however going to hubs first...scary not knowing what might happen.

Could be bad using eBay shipping label and getting an additional charge later down the road.

As eBay is great with refunds...refunds do not happen overnight.

nobody*s_perfect

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps wrote: ... Could be bad using eBay shipping label and getting an additional charge later down the road....

The eBay shipping calculator is based on USPS's, so it will surely incorporate the new rates as promised in the quoted Announcement.

readabouthorses

·1 year ago

1252 View listings

This is interesting. I live in the country, zip code 27574, which is on the list. However I don't get mail at my house as I have a PO Box at 27573 which is not on the list. So definitely targeting rural country folks. 27573 is Roxboro NC which is a small little town but they don't get the increase.

I noticed Priority Flat Rate was on the announcement. So does this mean there would be 2 rates for Flat Rate ... one for the townies and one for the country folk? Doesn't that sort of sound like discrimination?

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@wastingtime101 wrote:
The increase is for weight-based and cubic packages up to 20 lbs. for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Flat Rate, and Ground Advantage delivery to these zip codes.

Hey @kyle@ebay . I noticed the announcement specifically said rates are affected TO those zip codes.

There's no mention of rates being affected FROM those zip codes. If a seller lives in one of those zip codes, is it safe to say their label costs will only be affected it they are shipping TO an affected zip?

For example, a seller is located in an affected zip but shipping TO Los Angeles - does that mean the lower rate will apply since it's based on the "TO" and not the "FROM" - or is it based on both to AND from meaning every package under 20 lbs the seller ships will be affected by higher rates?

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago

@wastingtime101 wrote:
@wastingtime101 wrote:
The increase is for weight-based and cubic packages up to 20 lbs. for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Flat Rate, and Ground Advantage delivery to these zip codes.
Hey @kyle@ebay . I noticed the announcement specifically said rates are affected TO those zip codes.

There's no mention of rates being affected FROM those zip codes. If a seller lives in one of those zip codes, is it safe to say their label costs will only be affected it they are shipping TO an affected zip?

For example, a seller is located in an affected zip but shipping TO Los Angeles - does that mean the lower rate will apply since it's based on the "TO" and not the "FROM" - or is it based on both to AND from meaning every package under 20 lbs the seller ships will be affected by higher rates?

Hey @kyle@ebay . Can you try to get an answer on ^^ this? Thanks!

kyle@ebay

Admin1 year ago

Community Advisor0 View listings

@wastingtime101 wrote:

@wastingtime101 wrote:

@wastingtime101 wrote:

The increase is for weight-based and cubic packages up to 20 lbs. for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Flat Rate, and Ground Advantage delivery to these zip codes.

Hey @kyle@ebay . I noticed the announcement specifically said rates are affected TO those zip codes.

There's no mention of rates being affected FROM those zip codes. If a seller lives in one of those zip codes, is it safe to say their label costs will only be affected it they are shipping TO an affected zip?

For example, a seller is located in an affected zip but shipping TO Los Angeles - does that mean the lower rate will apply since it's based on the "TO" and not the "FROM" - or is it based on both to AND from meaning every package under 20 lbs the seller ships will be affected by higher rates?

Hey @kyle@ebay . Can you try to get an answer on ^^ this? Thanks!

Hey @wastingtime101 we don't have any additional details at this time, but if we do get more info from USPS on this, we'll be sure to follow up!

nobody*s_perfect

·1 year ago

@wastingtime101 wrote: ... Took a quick look at some of the zips on the list; they look mostly rural. Anybody else think a price change based on specific zip code rather than an entire zone is too complicated?...

Yes, indeed. It makes hash out of the whole Zone system.

The ZIP Codes on that list which are closest to me aren't particularly rural or inaccessible, but they are farther from the nearest major sorting center. Some of the Massachusetts ones are on the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. If this is the case, it would seem to be a USPS imitation of the rural surcharges imposed by FedEx and UPS. Implementation of this can't possibly be cost-effective.

wastingtime101

OP1 year ago