Are you using the new postal service rates in your ebay listings yet? If you’re not, you’d better go ahead and get those updated. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you may be in for a big surprise when it’s time to pay shipping charges on your sold items next week.
For regular mail, there will now be three categories, letters (41 cents for the first ounce), large envelopes or flats (80 cents for the first ounce), and packages or parcels (which use priority mail or parcel post rates). All letters must be uniformly flat as well as flexible. That means that if you include a piece of cardboard in an envelope with photos so they will not bend, these will no longer qualify as letters but will fall into the new category of flats/large envelopes. Lightweight bulky items placed in padded mailers will generally NOT qualify as a flat and will now be subject to package/parcel rates.
If you ship using the postal service’s priority mail envelopes, you should know that the rate for those flat-rate envelopes and all priority mail up to one pound will now be $4.60, up from $4.05. The two shapes of flat-rate priority mail boxes will now cost either $8.95 or $9.15 to mail, depending on which postal service publication you believe. The priority mail boxes and envelopes are still available FREE and will be delivered to you FREE if you order online at www.usps.com, so I do recommend using those to help keep your shipping costs down.
Size of packages is an issue as well. For packages exceeding 1 cubic foot (12x12x12 = 1728) or larger than 84 inches combined length and girth, a balloon rate may apply, so try to use boxes that just fit the items you’re mailing to avoid paying for mailing that extra space. There is also a balloon charge in some cases when a package exceeds 20 pounds.
There are major changes in international rates, but it appears to me that overall the categories will be simplified. The great news is that all of the domestic priority mail boxes can now be used for international mail as well, so you won’t have to scrounge for boxes to use to send your packages overseas.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably as confused about the new rates as everyone else I know, including my local postal workers. Hopefully the online calculators on both ebay/Paypal and the USPS site will be working correctly by May 14, but it will still be up to us as sellers and shippers to understand what class of mail we need to use based on size, shape, and weight so that we can quote correct shipping to our customers. As with most changes, this will work itself out over time and in a couple of weeks hopefully everyone will have the changes down pat. In the meantime, if you go to the post office next week, be kind to the clerks. They’re going to be just as frustrated as many of their customers will be.
Here are some links to help you find more information on the new policies and rates:
http://pages.ebay.com/shippingfaq/#usps
http://www.usps.com/ratecase/ratecase_faqs.htm
http://www.usps.com/ratecase/welcome.htm
http://pe.usps.com/RateCase2007/DMM300_HTML/ratesandfees2.htm
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