Got an e-mail from Pirate Ship.....

[mike_jayroe]

...that made me happy,  See red ink portion.

 

 

USPS is increasing some rates on November 18th

While the Postal Service is not adding any Holiday Surcharges this year, they are increasing Priority Mail rates everywhere you can buy postage online 

• Priority Mail Flat Rate is increasing up to 6%, because USPS is removing this service from the Connect eCommerce program that provided deeper discounts, so the rates are returning to the Commercial Pricing levels.
• Weight-Based Priority Mail is increasing up to 10% in zones 1-4, but it'll still have discounts that are cheaper than Commercial Pricing 
• Dimension-Based Priority Mail Cubic is increasing up to 23% in zones 1-4 for tiers 0.40 and 0.50—so the largest package sizes for this service are getting more expensive in the lowest zones. But the rates are still cheaper than Commercial Pricing 
• Ground Advantage is decreasing up to 16% in zones 1-5, depending on the size and weight of your package.

I ship a lot of non-book material this way.

Hope everyone else will benefit from this.

[4pawsup*]

Yep that is a win for some sellers. 16% nice.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

What the "PS US" (Postal Service Unto Sellers) ought be doing is surcharging items that come in from nations who subsidize their mail service at subsequent rates like China does.  Level the field.  After all, its US employee's who are doing the work once parcels hit US Shores.  Take those surcharges and apply them against LOW WEIGHT parcels of US shippers instead of playing shuffle puck games.  

[monroe67]

This forum has had a few posts during the last several days about this notice from Pirate Ship.

Assuming eBay's Calculated Shipping calculators will incorporate those decreases into Ground Advantage prices --

I think it's great news for eBay sellers -- unless those sellers routinely offer only Priority Mail deliveries.  The first three bullet points all state Priority Mail and they all are going to cost more after November 18th.
Sure, Priority Mail is probably faster than Ground Advantage but, as the trade-off, it's also more expensive and, after November 18th, will be even more expensive than that.  

As for my selling ID, she almost never even offers Priority Mail to her potential buyers but sticks with Ground Advantage.  So she's not looking at any shipping increases.  

[yuzuha]

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@monroe67 wrote:

As for my selling ID, she almost never even offers Priority Mail to her potential buyers but sticks with Ground Advantage.  So she's not looking at any shipping increases.  

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Yep, the moment Ground Advantage came into existence, I switched all of my listings that were previously Priority Mail to that and never looked back. It saves me AND my buyers money.

[stephenmorgan]

That is nice USPS Ground Advantage Shipping will be reduced.

Due to the recent changes with USPS adding Ground Advantage and $100 Insurance I have almost entirely quit using Priority Mail.  In the past I have used hundreds and hundreds of the Flat Rate Small Box or Flat Rate Padded Envelopes.  Now it is rare to use them.  I ordered 1400 plain corrogated shipping boxes to rely more on USPS Ground Advantage.  

So far I have not noticed that the Ground Advantage takes any longer than Priority Mail.  I wonder if during the Holiday Seasons if there will be long delays with Ground Advantage?

[fern*wood]

Do these changes only apply to Pirateship labels?

[tsme35]

Pirateship is the only one that has posted the rates, ebay reps don't have a clue and 2 eCommerce sites can't find out either but are trying to find out.

[mam98031]

Not sure how fair that is.  Ebay in the past has always been very good at posting rate changes or at least that has been my experience and I've been selling here a long time.  I've never had a rate increase / change sneak up on me before. 

This one is very interesting.  I actually don't see a difference in the Ground Advantage rates on the schedule, but maybe I will when I ship stuff on the 18th and after.  

https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/postal-information/usps-rate-change-overview.html#:~:text=The%20USPS%....

Unless I just am having trouble this evening, I'm not finding any announcement by USPS on this rate change that is days away.  Can anyone else find their announcement?

[tsme35]

EBAY REPS HAVE NO CLUE, I called in and ask, of course their supposedly get back to me. I've been selling a long time too, 16+ years now and ebay's been good about giving the heads up on shipping cost. We have less then 10 days to the shipping change, pirate ship only came out with 2 week notice, kinda cutting it close if you have alot of changes to make.

  I did find that pirate ship and a few other sites are sign into Connect eCommerce program and don't think Piney(ebay's service) is in it, the pirate ship posted "USPS is removing this service from the Connect eCommerce program that provided deeper discounts, so the rates are returning to the Commercial Pricing levels". I wish I would have saved the sites being effected by this, if I can find it I'll come back.

 I also compared our ebay rates now(items I've shipped the last couple days) and the new pirate ship rates on the 18th, and their the same rate, except for the "too low to show" rates.

 Honestly I'd love a 16% drop in GA shipping rate, I don't have many priority items left

[tsme35]

I found it: https://www.usps.com/business/connect/ecommerce-merchants.htm#platforms

[tsme35]

ebay's on the list

[mam98031]

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@tsme35 wrote:

I found it: https://www.usps.com/business/connect/ecommerce-merchants.htm#platforms

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That link has nothing about the upcoming rate changes that I could find.

[valueaddedresource]

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@tsme35 wrote:

EBAY REPS HAVE NO CLUE, I called in and ask, of course their supposedly get back to me. I've been selling a long time too, 16+ years now and ebay's been good about giving the heads up on shipping cost. We have less then 10 days to the shipping change, pirate ship only came out with 2 week notice, kinda cutting it close if you have alot of changes to make.

  I did find that pirate ship and a few other sites are sign into Connect eCommerce program and don't think Piney(ebay's service) is in it, the pirate ship posted "USPS is removing this service from the Connect eCommerce program that provided deeper discounts, so the rates are returning to the Commercial Pricing levels". I wish I would have saved the sites being effected by this, if I can find it I'll come back.

 I also compared our ebay rates now(items I've shipped the last couple days) and the new pirate ship rates on the 18th, and their the same rate, except for the "too low to show" rates.

 Honestly I'd love a 16% drop in GA shipping rate, I don't have many priority items left

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@tsme35 I saw an interesting post on LinkedIn from a very experienced and knowledgeable supply chain & technology consultant who gave some background on the issue and basically said that some platforms currently have better discounts than others on USPS Connect Ecommerce and those are the ones seeing rate increases, while the platforms that currently have less advantageous pricing are not.

It sounds like USPS is simply adjusting things so that they are the same across the board for platforms using Connect Ecommerce and that may affect some platforms but not others, but it's not actually a "rate change" that would need Postal Regulatory Commission approval.

Still trying to get confirmation but that could certainly explain why some platforms and shipping providers may not be seeing any changes and/or could also explain why some may be tight-lipped about the whole thing so as to avoid discussion about what their previous negotiated discounts might have been.

[tsme35]

from what I've found out, that seems to be the issue, it's the sites on the Connect eCommerce program.