Like clockwork, FedEx and UPS raise rates at the beginning of each year. On Tuesday, FedEx made it official for 2015.
FedEx is raising rates in January by an average of 4.9%. Among the services affected are FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, and FedEx Freight. New prices take effect on January 5, 2015, along with the new dimensional weight pricing it announced in May that will also take effect on January 5th.
Dim weight pricing, as it’s called, makes it more expensive to ship big packages that don’t weigh much in relation to their size. Both FedEx and UPS are moving to dim weight pricing for ground packages, a fact the USPS is trying to exploit.
Brian Sheehan of PostalNews.com wrote, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that not a single politician or newspaper editorial board will express outrage at “yet another rate increase” that is three times the rate of inflation!”
On its website, FedEx explained why it was raising its rates:
For a shipping company, the cost of doing business – fuel prices, the cost of updating or replacing equipment and vehicles, and more – makes it necessary for us to periodically evaluate our shipping rates, surcharges and fees. We make adjustments to enable us to keep investing in our business and ensure that we continue to deliver the shipping solutions and service excellence you have come to expect from FedEx.
There are some changes to fees, surcharges and accessorials as well. FedEx is increasing the surcharge for delivering packages to residential addresses by 20 cents per package, from $2.90 to $3.10. That’s sure to be bad news for online merchants who use FedEx Ground, since many consumer shoppers have items shipped to their home.
Details of all changes to rates and surcharges are available at FedEx website. A preview of FedEx ground rates is available in PDF format.
