"My tale of caution with USPS shipping rates" Topic

I will start off by acknowledging that I grossly underestimated shipping charges on an item and, as a result, ended up taking it in the shorts…

I sold a couple of new in the box 1/32 scale tanks on ebay and estimated the shipping at $15.00 USD. I figured that was pretty close. I packed them up and took them to the post office. USPS ground shipping was $43.50 USD! due to the size of the box. Wow! I have been shipping a lot of stuff, and I generally get the same employee, who even saved me $15 USD on shipping last week by telling me to reduce the box size, which I was able to do. Not this time. The box was the size that it needed to be.

Unless you are using priority boxes or are shipping small packages, make sure you get a quote on actual postage when selling items on line. Certainly a lesson learned the hard way.

Hi

Were you shipping multiple items? Always figure if it large then the PM medium box to shipping or offer free shipping and include $15 USD in the price of each. Also There are several box sizes for Priority mail that they don't put out at post office. You can ask for the other shape/sizes or order them online at usps.com

The items were too large to fit in USPS priority mail boxes. I would have used a priority box if the items would have fit in one.

Ouch! Thanks for the heads up.

Any package with a dimension over 12" is potentially a "large" package (but not always). If you use this:

postcalc.usps.com

You can assume it is large and see what that cost will be.

I have to say though, $43 USD sounds really wrong. I have shipped boxes measuring 14" x 12" x 10" that weighed close to 20 pounds from Il to Texas for half that.

About 2 years ago I purchased two boxes of 1/35 scale Dragon figures from the Ukraine. Took a long tome time to get here and when they did, they were in an envelope! One of those large USPS cardboard ones. I thought that I'd been ripped off.
I opened the envelope and everything was there! The sprues were arraigned to be as flat as possible and the original boxes were folded flat. Not a thing was damage but I would have appreciated a heads-up on method. Otherwise, I was happy with my new figures and after I started assembling them, I soon forgot about it.

Mark, thanks for the link. I used it and the price came up to 43-and-a-half dollars for postage.

Keep your boxes small. The size pricing kills you, even with a low weight item.

Let's talk about International shipping while we are at this. 2 weeks ago I sold some older 25mm castings for 50 cents each. They had no weapons or shields and I was happy to pass them on to someone that wanted them.

8 bucks worth, I said "Add $4 USD for shipping." Ontario. I took the box to the USPS. "$27 and change" she says "EXCUSE ME?" "I can drive there myself for less." Insanity!

How big was this box?

Large package really jacks up the price. I sold a game (Battlecry) and the box made it prohibitive to send USPS. Since ebay offers FEDEX and UPS I checked them and the price was less than half to send FEDEX. I have a scale so weight wasn't an issue, just the box size.

Skipper, I tried to mail a 5x9 hardback book on Canada a few years ago and the price was something like 13 or 16 dollars. I went to the PO this afternoon and a guy in front of me shipped a box about 2.5 times the size of the one I shipped and his ground postage was $85. USD It wasn't full of bricks; the lady at the counter did not have any problem moving it around.

I bought plastics out of Asia a few years ago which came just as d88mm1940 described. In fact, my man had even included the original boxes folded flat, so it can't possibly have been weight: it all had to be dimensions.

The USPS recent shipping price hikes included a dimensional cost. So your pack could be light but measures over 12" cubed, and that means your price gets artificially upped.

It is a rip-off system put in place by UPS and FedEx. But it made them a lot of cash.

It used to be that shipping wasn't an issue. With the rise of Amazon's abuse of the market, the USPS was getting smacked around. So, the prices went up.

The USPS recent shipping price hikes included a dimensional cost. So your pack could be light but measures over 12" cubed, and that means your price gets artificially upped.

It is a rip-off system put in place by UPS and FedEx. But it made them a lot of cash.

It used to be that shipping wasn't an issue. With the rise of Amazon's abuse of the market, the USPS was getting smacked around. So, the prices went up.

Welcome to the free market.

I recently got a shock when I tried to order some bases from by favourite base supplier. US$30worth of bases. US$95 to ship to Australia. I emailed the company thinking the web cart was broken. Previous it used to cost about US$20. Nope, that was the correct new price. I had to swap base suppliers.

This is the reason I have stopped ordering from the US years ago. And remember that high postage also means our local Customs want their cut and INCLUDES the aforementioned postage for calculating the sum we have to pay. I especially feel very sorry for all those small (one-person) businesses that are therefore cut off from the outside-US market…

Welcome to the world of dimensional freight, an area where USPS was probably one of, or, maybe the last, big shipper to put this into effect for boxes that we gamers sometimes use for bigger items.

Dimensional freight came into play when shippers tried to maximize their plane loads for optimal efficiency. Sending that 24"x48" box of feathers took up a lot of space and didn't generate the weight based income needed to maintain profitability. So the shipper either has to charge everyone more to accommodate for carrying the bigger, lighter boxes or just those using them. This is also an outside reason that some shippers provide free boxes. They cube up efficiently in their transports.

Check FedEx for these larger dimensional items. Their rates are much better.