All major carriers have now announced their price hikes for peak season.  It should be no surprise that FedEx and UPS both added volume based ‘demand’ surcharges that increase as your volume with them increases.  These surcharges can see you paying as much as $7.40 more per package you ship.

Information on UPS increases can be found here.

Information on FedEx increases can be found here.

What IS surprising is that USPS announced they will not be implementing any pricing changes for peak season.  You read that right! Your rates with USPS will not increase during the holiday season.

You can read USPS’s press release here.

When considering USPS’s recent infrastructure improvements and Ground Advantage rollout, USPS is a force to be reckoned with.  In many cases, it’s likely that shipping with USPS Ground Advantage will be ½ the cost of competitive services from UPS andFedEx starting in October.

Even if you’re not fully committed to USPS, consider routing excess parcel volume their way to minimize demand surcharges from other carrier like FedEx and UPS. Ground Advantage and Priority Mail are both highly competitive service offerings with service standard of 5 and 3 days respectively. You shouldn’t expect much (if any) service degradation when compared to FedEx andUPS.

When leveraged properly, you can even use USPS GroundAdvantage to make 1-2 day deliveries in zones 1-3.  When you compare the cost of a zone 3 USPSGround Advantage shipment to FedEx 2Day, Ground Advantage can cost less thanthe demand surcharge from FedEx alone…

What’s great is that if you’re using a shipping tool likeShipStation, Shippo, or EasyPost you already have access to a great rate card with the postal service that you can begin using instantly. All you need to do is start scheduling pick-ups with USPS.

In ShipStation, you can schedule those pickups directly in their interface.  Instructions here.  If you don’t use ShipStation, sign up for a USPS account and schedule your pick up here.

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