3% Top Rated Seller USPS shipping savings only working sometimes?

[recyclemotors707]

USPS padded flat rate envelopes I typically get 15% off,  so $8.95

Over the past few weeks I've had several that were 12% off, so $9.30

There is no rhyme or reason to it,  it's happening to orders with or without free shipping,  orders within my own state or across the country.  It happens with different browsers,  mobile or desktop.  

The only other variable that seems to correlate is an issue with downloading the labels after I print them.  When I'm seeing the higher price and try to download a label, it's trying to save as HTML instead of a PDF and the description is "captcha" instead of "ebay-labelxxxxxx"  

Is anyone else running into this issue?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

The surcharge for rural zip codes applies to priority mail flat rate as well as other services, and that could be what you are seeing.

[nobody*s_perfect · Accepted solution]

On September 16, USPS set up a new policy through which postage labels for about 17,000 out of their 42,000 ZIP Codes will be charged at the published online "Commercial" rate rather than at the more deeply discounted negotiated eBay rate; for instance, $9.30 is the published Commercial rate for a padded FRE and $8.95 is the usual eBay rate. The affected ZIP Codes are mostly rural, so this seems to be a proxy for the rural surcharge that FedEx and UPS charge.

Here's eBay's rather awkward announcement about the change:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/USPS-Rate-Changes-Effective-September-16-2024/ba-p/34661...

[recyclemotors707]

Thank you!    

Goes to show,  correlation is not causation.   That downloading issue is just a coincidence.