5 Ways USPS is Staying Competitive
The U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) obligations as an independent agency of the United States Federal Government has often put it at a disadvantage when competing against companies like FedEx and UPS. It developed a reputation as the more costly and way slower option for package delivery. In recent years, though, USPS has found innovative ways to remain competitive against its private rivals. 1. Keeping Prices Low to Attract Online...
FedEx & UPS Peak Season Surcharges
For the second year in a row, UPS and FedEx will enforce peak season surcharges that will impact shipping costs for e-commerce businesses this holiday season. Peak season charges are here to stay, and there is no getting around this so let’s dive into the details. FedEx Fortunately, FedEx will not apply peak season surcharges to most residential deliveries, except for packages that are oversized, unauthorized, or those that...
New FedEx Unauthorized Package Charge
Staying on top of shipping charges is one of the most important ways to make sure you’re protecting your e-commerce profit margins. If you’ve ever been hit with a mysterious charge related to a “Ground Unauthorized Package,” you know what we’re talking about. If you don’t know about Ground Unauthorized Packages yet, you’ll want to get up-to-speed on FedEx’s new 2018 charges. As of September 3, 2018, FedEx announced new pricing for...
UPS Adds Audit Fee for Shipping Charge Corrections
Have you ever accidentally forgot to weigh a shipment before it went, so you guesstimated? You were in a rush, had a dozen things to get done before lunch, and you decided to estimate. Although you may know your products pretty well and the costs of your shipments, you’re about to get charged by UPS the next time you estimate wrong. As of June, UPS now charges for shipping corrections. Let’s take a closer look at how it all works and...
UPS Increases Large Package Surcharges
If you’re an e-commerce seller or retailer who sells big products like sofas, tables, mattresses, and TVs, you might have noticed new surcharges from UPS when shipping these large items. UPS has started increasing their charges for Large Package Surcharges (LPS), plus increasing the Additional Handling Surcharge (AHS). Let’s take a closer look now at how these new surcharges charges work for sending large packages, so you’re...
Coping with Carrier Late Fee Penalties
Recently, a small parcel audit client signed a new contract with UPS without any assistance. They based their contract negotiations off of the previous UPS contract, and just asked for better discount rates. While this is a whole other topic that deserves its own blog post, they did not look at the whole contract, and were soon shipping about 20 percent of their UPS SurePost packages without any discount at all. Dimensional weight...
