"Change in USPS Delivery Confirmation costs" Topic

Interesting fact that I missed until today – as of January 27th, USPS Delivery Confirmation is 90 cents (up from 85, and essentially mandatory if you want any kind of shipper protection from nondelivery claims on PayPal). That in itself isn't particularly noteworthy, but Priority Mail (Flat Rate or by weight) now gets DC for free, where it used to just be 5 cents cheaper. That means that you save almost a dollar by using Priority, which alters the point at which it's a better bargain than 1st class by a fair amount. Both rates increased on the 27th as well, but Priority is a little more competitive for light by-weight packages now.

Also note that you no longer need to fill out a DC tag – the PO prints out a bar code sticker instead, and (as always) prints the tracking # on the receipt. Less paperwork for us, and less random paper to hold onto – but be sure to get and save your receipts.

Good to know; since eBay's shipping label service isn't ready for the Parcel Post to Parcel Select change (not sure why that will take until March – seems asinine) I'll have to actually stand in line.

Another (good) thing of note, international 1st class is getting Delivery Confirmation to Canada, with other countries coming online through 2013. This will be a very good thing.

About time, too. If we have to pay these kind of rates on International 1st class, it would be nice to get DC bundled with it. Important for PayPal, after all.

The price hike for the Padded Flat rate is insane. It's now cheaper to ship the same size envelop as a non-flat rate envelop. I haven't check to see what at what weight it changes yet.

Sure the envelops cost like $0.15 USD each but I'm still saving some over the flat rate cost. I was already switching to small boxes so this only affect a few products that don't fit into the SFB

A cautionary note – the new "USPS Tracking" option that has replaced the old Delivery Confirmation tags is not working smoothly. Our local branch tells me the system has been up and down in a random fashion since the changeover on the 27th, and if (as I just did) you happen to be trying to mail something while it's down, they simply won't sell you tracking. You won't even get it free on Priority, as is now the policy. And they won't apologize for the inconvenience.

That's not the level of professionalism I've come to expect from the USPS at all.

Remember that if shipping for an order paid through PayPal, you have zero seller protection without tracking.