With the new year underway, you may be feeling the burden of the latest round of carrier rate and surcharge increases hitting parcel costs. In order to understand and mitigate their business impact, you need to arm yourself with information. How can you measure the net impact of these changes? It all starts with good, accurate data.
UPS, facing massive volumes akin to the holiday season due to COVID-19’s impact on ecommerce, is imposing surcharges on larger-volume shippers and those sending bulkier items as of May 31 to offset its costs, impacting companies already reeling from the crisis. Experts agree they expect to see FedEx follow suit shortly.
The U.S. Postal Service reported a drop in its parcel volume for the first time in nine years during its third quarter, as major customers like Amazon continue to shift business away from the USPS and take on some of the deliveries themselves. However parcel revenue was up thanks to rate increases and a DIM adjustment this year.
Five months after it was initially scheduled to go into effect, the U.S. Postal Service will change how it calculates dimensional weight pricing while expanding DIM pricing to all zones across its Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail and Parcel Select products. The USPS is also lowering its DIM divisor from 194 to 166, increasing the cost.
FedEx announced a 4.9% general rate increase (GRI), matching increases from both itself and UPS in recent years. As each carrier will target different increases in their rates between services, weights and zones to net the overall average increase, here’s a deep dive look at how the FedEx GRI breaks down among its shipping services.
FedEx has announced its general rate increases for 2019, bumping up its ground, express and home delivery services by an average of 4.9% as of Jan. 7, while also adding some holiday season surcharges and increasing others next year. Rival UPS has yet to announce its 2019 rates.
The USPS is proposing a number of rate changes that would be effective on Jan. 27 including an average 9.3% increase in its Parcel Select service for packages weighing more than 1 lb., as it looks to recover rising costs and deals with stiff competition from major carriers.
The FedEx/UPS near duopoly has allowed the two large carriers to control marketplace pricing for years, echoing each other’s rate hikes and impacting parcel shippers both small and large. Find out about the latest increases from FedEx, how they compare to UPS, and how they will impact shippers as of Sept. 3.
UPS has made a number of intra-year rate and fee changes, including increasing the over-max charge for packages weighing more than 150 lbs. from $500 to $650. Here is a breakdown of all the changes and what they mean for you as a shipper.
The USPS is requesting a Priority Mail rate increase of 3.9% and 3.3% for Priority Mail Retail. This compares to increases of 4.9% for both UPS and FedEx. See what prices are being proposed across all of its parcel products.