The Postal Regulatory Commission approved USPS postage rate changes for next year which are set to take effect on January 27, 2019. A first class Forever stamp will rise from 50 cents to 55 cents, and you can review EcommerceBytes Online Seller’s Guide to USPS 2019 Shipping Rates for a look at rate changes for common competitive services such as First Class Package Service and Priority Mail.
An excerpt of today’s PRC press release follows:
Today the Postal Regulatory Commission issued Orders 4875 and 4876 approving the Postal Service’s planned rate adjustments for both Market Dominant products and Competitive products respectively.
Rate increases for Market Dominant products must meet certain statutory and regulatory requirements, the most prominent of which is that such increases be no greater than the rate of inflation, as determined by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.
Conversely, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires, among other things, that rates for Competitive products must produce sufficient revenues to ensure they are not subsidized by Market Dominant products.
The Commission found that the rates for both classes of mail meet all statutory requirements and may take effect, January 27, 2019, as planned.
The Commission also found that the planned classification changes, with the revisions set forth in Orders 4875 and 4876, are consistent with applicable law.
The Commission’s complete analyses of the Postal Service’s Market Dominant and Competitive rate adjustments for calendar year 2019 are located at www.prc.gov in Docket Nos. R2019-1 and CP2019-3, respectively.
See the full press release with tables on the PRC.gov website:
SOURCE: PRC Press Release
Looks like those sellers who continue to offer free shipping are going to be paying more. We just added another 2.00 to all our shipping as we no longer cater to the buyer. If they don’t want to pay for shipping they are free to buy somewhere else as we no longer care.
I can completely understand and I’m with you. Sites like Etsy, who push push push for you to offer free shipping–or NOW if you don’t penalize you by charging fees that include what you’ve paid for shipping need to have their a**es kicked.
Anybody want to bet that now Ebay will begin showing Sellers items only on the opposite coast so that they can increase their fees as much as possible. On a 4 ounce package that is a 16.17% increase in the cost of shipping which means that Ebay just recognized a nice revenue increase on the smaller packages of up to 16.17%. So what used to cost me $0.27 Ebay fee for shipping a 4 ounce item will now cost me $0.31 if it is going to zone 8 or 9 which is the opposite side of the country. Those in middle America will not feel this increase like the rest of us will, but may also suffer lower sales as Ebay changes the algorithm to show those items with the longest shipping distance first as they have been doing everything in their power to show additional revenue in any way possible.
Oh boy, another 10% hike on domestic mail so we can coddle red China even more!