Buyers given Fedex Ground Rates instead of Fedex Home Rates Starting Jan 2018, ouch!

[babclassics]

Has anybody noticed that starting in Jan 2018 the shipping calclulator AND eBay check-out process is giving a 48% to 51% discount on large heavy Fedex shipments if your settings pass full discounts on to the buyers? The max discount for Fedex is supposed to be 37% for home delivery.  Since home delivery is the lions share of shipments (at least for me).  It seems the 37% rate should be passed on the sellers, NOT the 51% rates unless they have a verified business address.  Once this happens there is no way to recoupe this revenue and you just have to eat the loss on shipping.  I am guessing this is a new "bug" in the system.  The help desk simply told me to contact Fedex to get an adjustment,  ha ha ha.  Please let's hear if others are having this problem?  It took me a while to figure out what was causing the buyers to be undercharged, but the math works out that they are being undercharged by about 12 to 14% on Fedex Home shippping for large cartons.  This adds up fast for sellers when a single Fedex label can cost over $50!

[babclassics]

Quick update: Today 1/24/2018 the eBay label generator is charging 150% more than actual cost for FedEx SmartPost shipments!  Buyer pays 10.03 (which i think is about right), my cost for label is 25.12   Unbelievable.  All anyone has do to to check this out is go to your label history.  Try re-printing any SmartPost label.  The new price is about 2-1/2 times higher.  Real problem for me.  Gues Priority Mail will be cheaper but still a loss.  Will do that or USPS parcel select until it is fixed.  Getting old.....

[dcintennessee]

@berserkerplanet, @babclassics - I am beyond confused. Wheretheheck can we find the actual current SmartPost rates?

There's one mug I'm shipping today, Priority Mail, which is now supposedly a great deal less. A Seattle seller has 4 identical mugs listed, and I know what the absolute minimum shipping weight could be. Her listing, also SmartPost, shows about $2.50 less to ship FOUR mugs to me in Zone 8, than I would pay to ship ONE identical mug SP to Zone 4. Who knows what she'd really pay for that label! 

I reported on the weekly chat yesterday that buyers are being charged old rates, while sellers are being charged the new rates. @Anonymous responded that they're looking into it. But, I'm not certain whether what I reported is accurate. Both packages I checked this week were small. Less than 4 pounds & way less than one cubic foot. So, the new dim rate scenario doesn't apply. I'm simply having a hard time believing FedEx raised rates THIS much for small packages. 

I can't find a way to check SP rates outside of ebay. @berserkerplanet, you have sooper-dooper skills at finding rate charts. Can you point us in that direction?

[berserkerplanet]

Quick update: Today 1/24/2018 the eBay label generator is charging 150% more than actual cost for FedEx SmartPost shipments!  Buyer pays 10.03 (which i think is about right), my cost for label is 25.12   Unbelievable.  All anyone has do to to check this out is go to your label history.  Try re-printing any SmartPost label.  The new price is about 2-1/2 times higher.  Real problem for me.  Gues Priority Mail will be cheaper but still a loss.  Will do that or USPS parcel select until it is fixed.  Getting old.....

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What were the package dimensions, actual weight, zone (or origin and dest zips)?

I suspect we are going to see that the $25.12 is correct. Smartpost has gone up tremendously due to dimensional weight beginning 1/22/18. My example item's Smartpost shipping tripled in cost from December. (Smartpost base rates are MORE than Ground rates and increase much faster - high dimensional weight produce high shipment costs where they didn't before)

The other problem is that it looks like the search, listing, and checkout calculators haven't been updated to use dimensional weights and are undercharging - 99% certain that $10.03 your buyer paid is totally wrong and too low.

And the only thing that is going to get fixed is the undercharging buyers part, which isn't going to fly with buyers. Smartpost is no longer the goto low cost option it was, is nearly useless for many things, and FedEx Ground, Parcel, And Priority are going to be the least evil choices for most things.

Provide the specific shipment info and we will put that uncertainty to rest.

[dcintennessee]

@berserkerplanet, check post #18. My packages both were small. 

[berserkerplanet]

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There's one mug I'm shipping today, Priority Mail, which is now supposedly a great deal less. A Seattle seller has 4 identical mugs listed, and I know what the absolute minimum shipping weight could be. Her listing, also SmartPost, shows about $2.50 less to ship FOUR mugs to me in Zone 8, than I would pay to ship ONE identical mug SP to Zone 4. Who knows what she'd really pay for that label! 

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Impossible to say without knowing the dimensions. That's really all that matters at this point. But it will be a lot.

I reported on the weekly chat yesterday that buyers are being charged old rates, while sellers are being charged the new rates. trinton@ebay responded that they're looking into it. But, I'm not certain whether what I reported is accurate. Both packages I checked this week were small. Less than 4 pounds & way less than one cubic foot. So, the new dim rate scenario doesn't apply. I'm simply having a hard time believing FedEx raised rates THIS much for small packages.

THERE IS NO 1 cubic foot threshold for FedEx dimensional weight, EVERY package may be subject to it, and ships at the greater of the actual or dim weight.

A 6"x6"x6" package has a FedEx Dim Wt = 6x6x6 / 139 = 2 pounds     8x8x8 Dim weight = 4pounds    10x10x10 Dim Weight = 8 pounds      12x12x10 Dim weight = 11 pounds       12x12x12    Dim Weight = 13 pounds

I pointed out in another thread that FedEx Ground and Smartpost have the same base rates for Zones 1-8 for 1 pound. I was wrong. The base rates are the same for the 2 services up to 9 pounds. (Smartpost rates really went up from 2017 there). After that Smartpost has a $4-7 jump between 9 and 10 pounds, and then really takes off (that's why Smartpost Dim Weight is so damaging). But remember, to be equivalent, we compare Smartpost and Home Delivery, so we have to add the $3.60 Residential surcharge to the Ground base rates.

What that means is that Smartpost stays $3.60 (Res Del SC) less than Home Delivery up to 9 pounds.

Sort of. Up to this point we are talking base rates and no discounts. In the past I've noted that Ground/Home Delivery eBay discounts were usually much better than Smartpost and I expect that is still true. So deeper Ground Home Del discounts could mean that those might be cheaper than even a 2 pound Smartpost shipment. No way to generalize more than that as discounts seem to be based on a random number generator.

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But, I'm not certain whether what I reported is accurate. Both packages I checked this week were small. Less than 4 pounds & way less than one cubic foot. So, the new dim rate scenario doesn't apply. I'm simply having a hard time believing FedEx raised rates THIS much for small packages. 

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Post the info for the packages and we can break it down (weight, dims, zone (or origin and dest zips)

I can't find a way to check SP rates outside of ebay. @berserkerplanet, you have sooper-dooper skills at finding rate charts. Can you point us in that direction?

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These are the documents you need to understand and use Smartpost:

http://images.fedex.com/us/smartpostguide/pdf/FXSP_ByPound_2018.pdf

http://images.fedex.com/us/smartpostguide/pdf/FXSP_FeesOtherShipInfo_2018.pdf

http://images.fedex.com/us/smartpostguide/pdf/FXSP_DAS_Contiguous_Extended_Alaska_Hawaii_2018.pdf

http://images.fedex.com/us/smartpostguide/pdf/FXSP_TermsConditions_2018.pdf

It's impossible to come up with a completely accurate Smartpost cost because of the variable eBay discounts and the fact that eBay doesn't use the normal Fuel Surcharge rate (what they use is usually 0.1% to 1% less than the published rate and seemingly random But mostly negligible difference). It's having no way to know how much discount eBay will apply to any given Smartpost shipment that makes it hard. All I can say is it seemed to be about 4% to 19% last year, and usually 4% was it.

To manually estimate a Smartpost label cost, what you do is:

Calculate the dimensional weight ( L x W X H / 139 and round up to next whole pound). If it's more than actual weight then use that. If less then use actual weight.

Go to the Smartpost "By Pound" rate chart you downloaded (and printed out?) and look up the base rate for your destination zone. That puts you in the ballpark.

Add the Fuel Surcharge to that base rate and you have the undiscounted cost. (We are ignoring any Delivery area surcharges and non-machinable surcharges here)

Example: 3 pounds 20x15x7 going to zone 8

Dim weight = 20x15x7/139 = 15.11 lb = 16 lb.  Forget 3 lb actual weight - is going to ship at 16 lb rate.

In the table the rate for 16 pounds to zone 8 = $31.63  Current Fuel Surcharge is 5.75% so

our estimated undiscounted cost is $31.63 x 1.0575 = $33.45 

eBay labels comes up total of $32.27. (That same package cost about $10.50 to ship in December!)

Showed a base rate of $31.63 (same), a  4% discount, and used an effective fuel surcharge rate of 5.52%  (you can see the breakdown by expanding the "transportation charge" on the label estimate)

(When eBay labels comes up with same base rate you do that tells you both you and eBay are on the same page and it's a way or reverse calculating what dimensional weight divisor eBay is using - you put in the dimensions, labels comes up with a base rate, you look that base rate up in chart and determine weight, and bust out calculator and figure out divisor by trial and error)

This shows that those outrageous Smartpost label amounts everyone is saying must be  glitch are correct amounts.

[dcintennessee]

Darn, @berserkerplanet. You SAID /139 before, but it didn't soak in exactly how small a package can be and trigger a problem. Mine were 12x7x9 & 9x9x9, both counting as 5+ pounds, plus the other charges. I think both showed a whopping 2% discount, not enough to remotely offset the increase.

I've removed SmartPost from all listings with calculated shipping. Now have to start over with the few remaining flat rate & "free" shipping, most of which were priced based on old SP rates. 

Although SP isn't my preferred shipping method, it enabled lots of far-zone dinnerware sales. Time to step back & re-evaluate!

[berserkerplanet]

Exactly. I have to sit down and redo some of mine too, but until eBay fixes the other calculators to show and charge buyers the correct amounts (instead of 25% in some cases of the correct amounts), I'm pulling all Smartpost options off even if they are viable costwise.

What is going to settle this is whether or not those single digit eBay Smartpost discounts are really it and not something else needing fixing. Without 20% or better discounts Smartpost just can't work for me for the things I was using it for before (Like that $10 one gone to $30 I showed above - only way that can fly is if I drop the price and lose money on the sale)

We still need to get the FedEx Ground/Home Delivery weirdness fixed too I think.

[dtexley3]

@Anonymous alan@ebay brian@ebay

Do we have any confirmation any of the FedEx issues are being addressed?  It's day 4 and no official word from eBay that the problems exist, much less a status update.  

When creating a listing the shipping calculator DOES NOT APPLY the dim weight to SmartPost, the residential delivery fee IS NOT APPLIED to FedEx Home Delivery.  How can we trust any FedEx rates on the site if we can't even get correct estimates from the calculator?

There are multiple reports of buyers being charged the unadjusted FedEx rate when Dim weight applies and the Seller out of pocket for the extra fees.  How are we to trust eBay when we cannot see that these issues are being addressed.

I had to pull down all my items > 3lb to protect myself until I can reevaluate my buisiness model.  Unfortunately I just purchased a huge lot of similar items (not that that's eBay's fault, but still..hehehe)

The FedEx problems should have the same level of attention and urgency as the international and domestic label issue over the weekend.  If it does, we can't tell.

[Anonymous]

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@babclassics wrote:

Has anybody noticed that starting in Jan 2018 the shipping calclulator AND eBay check-out process is giving a 48% to 51% discount on large heavy Fedex shipments if your settings pass full discounts on to the buyers? The max discount for Fedex is supposed to be 37% for home delivery.  Since home delivery is the lions share of shipments (at least for me).  It seems the 37% rate should be passed on the sellers, NOT the 51% rates unless they have a verified business address.  Once this happens there is no way to recoupe this revenue and you just have to eat the loss on shipping.  I am guessing this is a new "bug" in the system.  The help desk simply told me to contact Fedex to get an adjustment,  ha ha ha.  Please let's hear if others are having this problem?  It took me a while to figure out what was causing the buyers to be undercharged, but the math works out that they are being undercharged by about 12 to 14% on Fedex Home shippping for large cartons.  This adds up fast for sellers when a single Fedex label can cost over $50!

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Hello everyone, I wanted to let you know that we are aware of some recent issues with FedEx SmartPost shipments. Recently, pricing changes were introduced and necessary updates were not made in time on our end. We are working to resolve problems with our shipping calculator, search results, view item pages and checkout. The pricing seen by sellers when printing SmartPost labels is accurate, but may be more than what the buyer was charged.

Until this is resolved, we recommend that sellers utilize an alternative service. Also be aware that lightweight packages (those under 10lb by weight or dimension) are typically the only sizes where SmartPost provides significant savings over other shipping services.

We apologize for any trouble this may have caused and will provide updates as they become available!

[babclassics]

@berserkerplanet @dcintennessee

Looks like you all worked out the SmartPost undercharge / new price for dim weight without examples from me, excellent dectective work.  As  trinton@ebay and everyone else is saying - I will remove the SmartPost option from all my shipping business rules, probably replace it with USPS Parcel Select Ground for shipments that get hit with the new huge increase.  This WAS a great way go offer low price shipping on things like light pieces of china that need a larger box to avoid breakage.

One question that came up was how to you get SmartPost rate quotes outside of eBay (without getting all the rate tables and doing it manually like berserkerplanet did!).  You can quote SmartPost on fedex.com in Ship Manager after you submit an application to FedEx to print SmartPost labels, otherwise that choice does not appear in Ship Manager when creating a label.

Also notcied, any maybe this was mentioned, there is no residential surcharge for SmartPost so that should not be added by eBay calculator (and it appears it is not being added).

Here is the exact details on the shipment i posted earlier  from ZIP 55121 to 33810. It seems to line up with the new "rate increases"

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I have an update on this topic to share: we've implemented fixes to the way that FedEx SmartPost costs are displayed that should resolve the recent problem with buyers seeing a different price than what you see when you went to print labels. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused and recommend contacting Customer Service if you have any questions about the shipping discrepancies you may have run into while this was an issue.

[babclassics]

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wrote:

Hi everyone, I have an update on this topic to share: we've implemented fixes to the way that FedEx SmartPost costs are displayed that should resolve the recent problem with buyers seeing a different price than what you see when you went to print labels. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused and recommend contacting Customer Service if you have any questions about the shipping discrepancies you may have run into while this was an issue.

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The Smart Post calculations are much better but still about 14% undercharing for packages that kick in the new heavily increased dimensional pricing, in my opinion.  I posted details in the "SmartPost cost doubled" thread where @Anonymous also posted this update on the smartpost fix.

The original topic of this thread was about Ground versus Home Rates issues.  Several people posted on what they thought the problem was with that undercharge.  It seems it is not the residential delivery fee that i first stated in this thread.   It has been mentioned that this discrepancy has been fixed but i can say it has not been fully fixed.  I finally got my actual Fedex charges back on the monthly invoice and there are still undercharges happening for FedEx Home.  But not all shipments.  Am yet to find the common thread but there is still definately an undercharge to the buyer for large heavy FedEx Home packages to some zip codes.  So i don't think the original problem that started this thread is fully fixed.  Will post more with exact details as they appear but several examples are already given much earlier in this thread and they still yield the same results of quoted cost to buyer being lower than label print cost by a siginficant amount.

[Anonymous]

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wrote:

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wrote:

Hi everyone, I have an update on this topic to share: we've implemented fixes to the way that FedEx SmartPost costs are displayed that should resolve the recent problem with buyers seeing a different price than what you see when you went to print labels. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused and recommend contacting Customer Service if you have any questions about the shipping discrepancies you may have run into while this was an issue.

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The Smart Post calculations are much better but still about 14% undercharing for packages that kick in the new heavily increased dimensional pricing, in my opinion.  I posted details in the "SmartPost cost doubled" thread where @Anonymous also posted this update on the smartpost fix.

The original topic of this thread was about Ground versus Home Rates issues.  Several people posted on what they thought the problem was with that undercharge.  It seems it is not the residential delivery fee that i first stated in this thread.   It has been mentioned that this discrepancy has been fixed but i can say it has not been fully fixed.  I finally got my actual Fedex charges back on the monthly invoice and there are still undercharges happening for FedEx Home.  But not all shipments.  Am yet to find the common thread but there is still definately an undercharge to the buyer for large heavy FedEx Home packages to some zip codes.  So i don't think the original problem that started this thread is fully fixed.  Will post more with exact details as they appear but several examples are already given much earlier in this thread and they still yield the same results of quoted cost to buyer being lower than label print cost by a siginficant amount.

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Hi @babclassics, I've emailed you just now for more info so I can look into what may be going on. Looking forward to working with you!

[babclassics]

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@Anonymouswrote:

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wrote:

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wrote:

Hi everyone, I have an update on this topic to share: we've implemented fixes to the way that FedEx SmartPost costs are displayed that should resolve the recent problem with buyers seeing a different price than what you see when you went to print labels. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused and recommend contacting Customer Service if you have any questions about the shipping discrepancies you may have run into while this was an issue.

---

The Smart Post calculations are much better but still about 14% undercharing for packages that kick in the new heavily increased dimensional pricing, in my opinion.  I posted details in the "SmartPost cost doubled" thread where @Anonymous also posted this update on the smartpost fix.

The original topic of this thread was about Ground versus Home Rates issues.  Several people posted on what they thought the problem was with that undercharge.  It seems it is not the residential delivery fee that i first stated in this thread.   It has been mentioned that this discrepancy has been fixed but i can say it has not been fully fixed.  I finally got my actual Fedex charges back on the monthly invoice and there are still undercharges happening for FedEx Home.  But not all shipments.  Am yet to find the common thread but there is still definately an undercharge to the buyer for large heavy FedEx Home packages to some zip codes.  So i don't think the original problem that started this thread is fully fixed.  Will post more with exact details as they appear but several examples are already given much earlier in this thread and they still yield the same results of quoted cost to buyer being lower than label print cost by a siginficant amount.

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Hi @babclassics, I've emailed you just now for more info so I can look into what may be going on. Looking forward to working with you!

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Ok, got your email and sent examples with details on Smartpost and FedEx Home label costs that still look fishy.  Hope you got them OK since they were to a generic email address.  If not, let me know.  Will post back here for everyone as the results unfold.

[Anonymous]

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@babclassics wrote:

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@Anonymouswrote:

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wrote:

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wrote:

Hi everyone, I have an update on this topic to share: we've implemented fixes to the way that FedEx SmartPost costs are displayed that should resolve the recent problem with buyers seeing a different price than what you see when you went to print labels. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused and recommend contacting Customer Service if you have any questions about the shipping discrepancies you may have run into while this was an issue.

---

The Smart Post calculations are much better but still about 14% undercharing for packages that kick in the new heavily increased dimensional pricing, in my opinion.  I posted details in the "SmartPost cost doubled" thread where @Anonymous also posted this update on the smartpost fix.

The original topic of this thread was about Ground versus Home Rates issues.  Several people posted on what they thought the problem was with that undercharge.  It seems it is not the residential delivery fee that i first stated in this thread.   It has been mentioned that this discrepancy has been fixed but i can say it has not been fully fixed.  I finally got my actual Fedex charges back on the monthly invoice and there are still undercharges happening for FedEx Home.  But not all shipments.  Am yet to find the common thread but there is still definately an undercharge to the buyer for large heavy FedEx Home packages to some zip codes.  So i don't think the original problem that started this thread is fully fixed.  Will post more with exact details as they appear but several examples are already given much earlier in this thread and they still yield the same results of quoted cost to buyer being lower than label print cost by a siginficant amount.

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Hi @babclassics, I've emailed you just now for more info so I can look into what may be going on. Looking forward to working with you!

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Ok, got your email and sent examples with details on Smartpost and FedEx Home label costs that still look fishy.  Hope you got them OK since they were to a generic email address.  If not, let me know.  Will post back here for everyone as the results unfold.

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Hi @babclassics, sounds good! I've gotten this passed along and will keep you updated