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Last saturday new postage rates went into effect for international mail, the price to send packages internationally has increased by almost 80%.

Depending on where you source your bits from it may have gotten a lot more pricey, which isn't terribly helpful for buyer or sellers.

Damn, guess it's time to find a new retailer closer to home again.

Sadly, the US Post Office is too big to fail. They would be rolling in money if they raised prices on all of the junk they deliver to my house. Instead they almost double the price for international mail. Sucks if you have to send something abroad.

Small flat rate box International from USA to France went from ~$16 to ~ $24...

Fing BS...

Ouch. Some funded kickstarters just got punched in the balls.

Would making smaller purchases that fit in a bubble mailer be a viable alternative, or by package you meant anything at all sent via USPS?

 plastictrees wrote:
Ouch. Some funded kickstarters just got punched in the balls.

The thought hadn't even crossed my mind but you're totally correct! This may put an end to my interest in Kickstarter based projects too

The post office states that international rates increased on average by 14.5 percent.

 spaceelf wrote:
The post office states that international rates increased on average by 14.5 percent.

Large Flat Rate Boxes have increased from around $50 to around $75 to ship to the UK.

Mediums are now $50 :/

USPS: following the GW business model since 2013!

Usually I just 'suck it up' when it comes to having stuff shipped from the US to Europe, but it will severely curtail my desire to buy stuff now.

The price difference won't be big enough now unless it's a major bargain.

With the increase in shipping, plus that it seems like Canada Customs is being a lot more picky about duties, and it looks like I'll work on getting my backlog of minis built and painted instead of buying for awhile.

I may be going to US only on my swap shop posts soon. I have always been wary of international because of increased costs, but now...

I shipped to Canada 2 weeks ago and to ship about 5lbs cost me $15. I understand people don't have access to the shipping costs I do but this year fed ex and ups both lowered their costs. If someone says they are upping costs they are pocketing that money for whatever reason.

 cgage00 wrote:
I shipped to Canada 2 weeks ago and to ship about 5lbs cost me $15. I understand people don't have access to the shipping costs I do but this year fed ex and ups both lowered their costs. If someone says they are upping costs they are pocketing that money for whatever reason.

This seems like it makes no sense.

Fed Ex and UPS have both been traditionally more expensive than USPS for first class to Canada (in my experience). Now USPS is increasing costs as well.

So you are saying that if I tell someone that it will cost more money to ship (because costs have risen) that I am pocketing the difference?

I don't get where you are coming from here. It does cost more to ship now.

USPS also killed Parcel Post, so no more moderately cheap but slow shipping.

 cgage00 wrote:
I shipped to Canada 2 weeks ago and to ship about 5lbs cost me $15. I understand people don't have access to the shipping costs I do but this year fed ex and ups both lowered their costs. If someone says they are upping costs they are pocketing that money for whatever reason.

http://ircalc.usps.com/?country=10054 <-US to Canada Calculator.

Express Mail® International - $53.55
Express Mail® International Flat Rate Boxes - $64.95
Priority Mail® International - $37.65
Priority Mail® International Large Flat Rate Box - $53.95
Priority Mail® International Medium Flat Rate Box - $40.95

Those are the only options on the USPS website for shipping a 5lbs package to Canada.

 spaceelf wrote:
Sadly, the US Post Office is too big to fail. They would be rolling in money if they raised prices on all of the junk they deliver to my house. Instead they almost double the price for international mail. Sucks if you have to send something abroad.

You have this a bit off: they're too supported and subsidized by the government to fail.

They should fail for many reasons.

They raised rates due to pension and healthcare costs. Their overhead is atrocious. All mail rates were effected we just have a law that says domestic rates can't go up more than a specified % each year. Hence the forever stamp because the prices for stamps kept increasing and nobody wanted to use the 1 cent stamp. UPS and FedEx do a better job and still make a healthy profit for nearly the same price and are more reliable.

Wow, this is balls. I ship quite a bit to Canada, and it's gone up significantly.

UPS/Fedex have always been close on the actual shipping price, but your customer gets NAILED on import fees. USPS shipments usually avoided the fees, somehow.

See I talking about rates that bigger accounts have access to not the general population. I should have been clearer on that point. Lets use this example:

I go to my local store to ship a box from me in York sc to chino ca. The store will charge me $30. They factor in all their costs and what not.

Now I use my companies fed ex account. I only have to pay $7.52 after all discounts and taxes and fuel charges.

See the difference?

 cgage00 wrote:
See I talking about rates that bigger accounts have access to not the general population. I should have been clearer on that point. Lets use this example:

I go to my local store to ship a box from me in York sc to chino ca. The store will charge me $30. They factor in all their costs and what not.

Now I use my companies fed ex account. I only have to pay $7.52 after all discounts and taxes and fuel charges.

See the difference?

FedEx just quoted me $35.41 for a 5lbs package to Canada.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Made a business account, ran through Fedex's online quote with the same variables.. it gave me a price of $95.16 for lbs to Canada.

 cgage00 wrote:
I shipped to Canada 2 weeks ago and to ship about 5lbs cost me $15. I understand people don't have access to the shipping costs I do but this year fed ex and ups both lowered their costs. If someone says they are upping costs they are pocketing that money for whatever reason.

 cgage00 wrote:
See I talking about rates that bigger accounts have access to not the general population. I should have been clearer on that point. Lets use this example:

I go to my local store to ship a box from me in York sc to chino ca. The store will charge me $30. They factor in all their costs and what not.

Now I use my companies fed ex account. I only have to pay $7.52 after all discounts and taxes and fuel charges.

See the difference?

Good job. So you have access to a company account to ship at significant savings, yet the majority who don't have similar access are "pocketing money for whatever reason." Fantastic logic on your part...

Guess no international shipping for me , period.. !

Sorry rest of world! USPS feths it up again...

 AtraAngelis wrote:
Guess no international shipping for me , period.. !

Sorry rest of world! USPS feths it up again...

I get the first sentiment, but don't get the second.

Understand that as a business, USPS has been providing us with services for weeeeellll below any logical rate for years. It is clear from their current financial situation that they cannot continue to do so for the same price. It isn't like they are making a mistake, they are simply adjusting prices to the market and trying to become solvent.

 Chronepsis wrote:

Good job. So you have access to a company account to ship at significant savings, yet the majority who don't have similar access are "pocketing money for whatever reason." Fantastic logic on your part...

I think he might have just meant that it may actually be cheaper to use 'premium' delivery services instead of the basic postal service in some cases.

I ship a few packages a year and do a couple to Canada (gifts to some of my friends at DP9). Got luck and scraped through with parcel post just last week (Yes, I just about got my Christmas gifts done...). I check with UPS and the USPS before shipping.

Note that I also found that for certain package sizes, it's cheaper to avoid the 'flat rate' boxes for non-international deliveries. I spent less than $1/box + about $6/package for some stuff which would have cost $9 or more for the flat-rate boxes.

Yeah, there's definitely a balance with flat rate. Luckily, they have a nice calculator on their site (and with mobile app) to figure out whether flat rate or normal is better.

That being said, I will often ship flat rate just for the free box and lack of hassle.

I'm surprised that nobody here on Dakka is going to say the USPS hired GW to consult on pricing strategies. For shame since this board tends to view any price increase to GW. You're ask missing the real point - someone needs to pay for these government employees to have a pension and healthcare. Its not fair that they worked for the government for 50 years and they don't get a pay check when they retire. You're just un-American if you think you should have to save for your own retirement!

 pretre wrote:

 AtraAngelis wrote:
Guess no international shipping for me , period.. !

Sorry rest of world! USPS feths it up again...

I get the first sentiment, but don't get the second.

Understand that as a business, USPS has been providing us with services for weeeeellll below any logical rate for years. It is clear from their current financial situation that they cannot continue to do so for the same price. It isn't like they are making a mistake, they are simply adjusting prices to the market and trying to become solvent.

This problem is exacerbated because they're unwilling to do any cost cutting measures that would make the business more efficient.

They refuse to cut Saturday mail service.

They refuse to close any low volume mail centers.

The current administration wants to do this, but they're being impeded by the fear of layoffs and the postal unions.

If you work for a company that let's their staff use their rates, by all means go for it. Pocket the difference, if someone is going to be mad they bought something they perceive as a good value from you but will get their panties in a wad because you're going to pocket an extra $10 on shipping because you have a better way to ship it than me and I would be paying that $10 elsewhere to ship it from anyone else then what does it master. Its still a good deal. Unless you are buying from international companies, these changes won't affect you much.

Mathieu Raymond wrote:USPS: following the GW business model since 2013!

boyd wrote:I'm surprised that nobody here on Dakka is going to say the USPS hired GW to consult on pricing strategies.

You mean except the first time the silly comparison was made?

For shame since this board tends to view any price increase to GW. You're ask missing the real point - someone needs to pay for these government employees to have a pension and healthcare. Its not fair that they worked for the government for 50 years and they don't get a pay check when they retire. You're just un-American if you think you should have to save for your own retirement!

Hoo boy. Take it to OT.