Why Rural Buyers May Pay More for Online Shipping

by: Rexford

I hate it for my Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico buyers but I blocked those locations in my shipping tab..  This is one of the worst decisions USPS has ever made.  Penalizing people for living in rural areas.

by: terry

11.8% increase, maybe for retail but discount rates is 3 times that much, $5.60 to $8.40. Ebay knows the rural rates, we're already being charge for the extra postage but being only a few cents, no one really bother by it. All they have to do is extend the rule they have for HI and AK, god forbid ebay would have to spend a little money to revise the program. When I raise my shipping $3, not only will I lose my rural buyers but also city too, I can't lose $2-3 every third order.
If the USPS thinks this is going to make them more money, their crazy. This rate increase is only going drop volume and not increase income. Rural carriers run those routes whether they have a bunch or no mail, its paid by route no by the hour.
Bottom line this will hurt both ebay and PO, I'm selling off low value items and will not be replacing them. I'm looking at about 40% inventory drop. Most people say with each rate increase, this is the end, I would say this MAJOR increase will be it. At least for me, hard to find enough inventory to continue as a business.

by: etectra

"In some cases, rural Americans must pay significantly more to receive lightweight packages purchased online from US sellers that are sent through the Postal Service than buyers located in cities and suburbs."

So USPS is finally acting like a business and charging more for areas that cost them more to deliver to. When the post office was setup by the Constitution it only transported mail from post office to post office. There was no home delivery. It was your job to go and get your mail at post office - hopefully the sender had addressed it to one nearest you.

Home delivery was not approved until 1863 and that was limited to areas where the local revenue could support such efforts. This was confined to large cities with a population of 10,000 or $10,000 in gross revenue . By 1864 only 65 cities had home delivery. Local postmasters had different rules as some might only deliver mail one day a week while others might deliver it more than once a day Monday through Saturday.

In 1896 the Post Office experimented with rural delivery, but that did become widespread until 1902. This was responsible for the fortunes of many mail order companies such as Sears Roebuck. The net effect of Congress forcing these additional responsibilities onto the Post Office was that it lost money. By 1909 its was $17 million in the red.  From 1863 to 1940 it operated in the red all but 8 years.

"From North Carolina, a typical 4oz package was costing $5-$6 several weeks ago. Now, if I ship to a rural area, or Northwest US, or Hawaii, it's costing me $8.40. So, my only recourse is to raise pricing for all buyers."

You should have been charging calculated USPS retail rates in the first place. You pay the commercial rate, with the difference paying for the FVF on the shipping. When rates go up then you do not have to adjust any of your unsold listings. This works for most smaller sized and weighted packages that are below a cubic foot in volume.

Larger sized packages and UPS, which are few and far between for me, require you to calculate the maximum possible shipping rate and then increase the price of the item by 20% to account for FVF on shipping. So find a zip code representing the highest price zone and use that on PirateShip to calculate the rate. I use a zip code in Hawaii, which is the most isolated location from my zip code as I do not ship to zone 9 areas. To lower the maximum possible shipping rate consider banning Hawaii and Alaska in addition to zone 9 and instead use the highest price zone in the Lower 48.

"but not for buyers in Alaska, Hawaii, and those located in many of the zip codes USPS designates as rural."

If you think USPS rates for Alaska and Hawaii are bad you need to check UPS and FedEx. both of these companies have been adding surcharges for home delivery versus a business address for a long time. Both these companies have also hired USPS to complete the final delivery of packages while USPS has hired these companies to move packages via air.

"When it comes to postal rates and service standards, all ZIP codes have been treated equally," he wrote. "It doesn't matter if it's densely populated or sparse, urban or rural. The ZIP Code helps bind the country together. But all that is changing."

It is that kind of thinking that financially destroyed USPS! Congress forcing USPS to add services across the country without taking into the added cost of these areas. Any business that operates like this goes bankrupt.

Nonsense! Postal zone rates are based on a given range of miles traveled; however, those divisions have been increasingly not reflecting the total cost of delivering to certain areas, thus the post office had made changes to the zip code matrix for years. Look at a Notice 123 from say 2013 and there no zone 9, but in 2014 there is.

I code a shipping calculator application for Macintosh X, Classic and Windows XP circa 2006. This application did not require a internet connection as the entire zip code matrix as well as all postal shipping rules were incorporated into to display the correct rates. Back then all rates were calculated based on the first three digits of the zip code, thus my program allowed you to calculate rates by just entering the first three digits, thus saving you time. USPS changed this years ago by adding five digit exceptions to this rule whereas rates for one or more services are assigned a lower or higher zone depending on a specific zip code.

Here is a screenshot of the application:

https://ibb.co/BHzqCb5q

"In fact, he said that in September 2024, USPS introduced a new policy of varying rates by 5-digit ZIP Code destinations for the first time, at least publicly."

Nonsense!

Five digit zip code exceptions in the zip code matrix have been used for many years! Here is a example zone chart from 2021 to prove this person completely wrong.

https://ibb.co/Qj8cYYTT

"In his post, Hutkins also pointed out the downgrade in service impacting sellers in rural areas: USPS ended afternoon collections at post offices that are located at post offices more than 50 miles from a Regional Processing and Distribution Center - adding a day to their service standards."

In rural areas USPS is unlikely to be picking up the mail and packages in the first place. Here its done by local contractors who bid on routes to pickup packages and mail at various post offices and delivery it to a large regional post office in a city of 30,000. From there its sent to a sorting center about 100 miles away.

The local post office in a town of less than 400 is more than 100 miles away from the sorting center, but gets it mail and packages picked up each day around noon when the post offices closes and on Saturday around 9:30 am when it closes.

This guy is as reliable as AI - maybe that is where he got his so called answers.

by: BillBooks

I hate this diatribe that the USPS needs to run like a business.  Typical of republican apologists who want to PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING.

The USPS was NEVER intended to run like a business.  IT was not founded on the idea it had to make more money than it spent.  The constant corporate conservative push to make it insolvent has all been in the idea they can break it up so for-profit corps can consume its corpse.. thats about as Un-American as you can get.

Should the US Military be forced to ''break even'' every year?

No, that would be silly right?  Howabout FEMA?  The NWS?   I could go on an on.  

The USPS has ''lost'' $109 Billion since 2007.  

Since Trump started bombing Iran (this time), the US has directly wasted $37.5 Billion, and has asked for another $67 billion to replace expended munitions.  So far, in less than 6 months, we have WASTED $104.5 Billion.

Which is more impactful to the US Economy and the US people?  Bombing Iran which apparently hasn't done a darn thing to change the status quo in a way that benefits the US citizens, or spending those billions to keep the USPS working over almost 20 years.

by: Rexford

Etectra, you lost me at "When the post office was setup by the Constitution it only transported mail from post office to post office:"   Not Factual.

Fact:  The Constitution AUTHORIZED CONGRESS to create and regulate a national postal system.  The Constitution does not require that there always be a particular agency called the "United States Postal Service."  Congress has the constitutional authority to determine how the postal system is organized and operated.

And your comment about UPS is also not factual.  This week, I shipped more than 30% of my packages via UPS because it was cheaper than USPS and these were not heavy packages, all under 1 pound.  That has never happened and I have been selling online for 25 years.  USPS appears to be pricing themselves out of business.

In your diatribes you appear to be doing a lot of cutting and pasting.  You might want to double fact check where you are getting your information or at least get down in the weeds with the details of the information.

BillBrooks' post is excellent. His statement "I hate this diatribe that the USPS needs to run like a business.  Typical of republican apologists who want to PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING."   100% ACCURATE

by: terry

On top of all said, letter mail is dead, I don't even get weekly ads anymore, its all on line now. If it wasn't for the online sellers, there wouldn't be any mail for the USPS.