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Thread: USPS Priority changes 01-22-2023

  1. #1
    Boolit Master phaessler's Avatar
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    USPS Priority changes 01-22-2023

    Heads up and delete if not allowed.
    Since so many of us ship USPS for our items, I figured some may not know that a truly cost saving product was dropped from the USPS Priority lineup.

    The Regional A & B flat rate boxes were discontinued on Jan-22-2023.

    Here is the link:

    https://link.usps.com/2022/12/29/priority-mail-change/

    Thanks

    Pete

  2. #2
    Boolit Buddy
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    Not to mention the "temporary" holiday price increases that just turn into the permanent yearly increases.

    In any case I use this opportunity to recommend the use of pirateship.com. It allows regular consumers to pay business and cubic rates for shipping USPS and UPS. The discounts vary depending on size and weight of the package, BUT it is always cheaper than at the post office and is INSANELY cheaper than at the UPS store. I've found USPS to be around 10 - 25% cheaper and UPS to be between 35-50% cheaper.

    Also, beware of flat rate boxes. They are seldom the cheaper choice and often much more expensive (BTW - you get cheaper shipping on flat rate through pirateship too). The only time I really use them is when I'm shipping lead. It's a great deal for that purpose.

    Also, beware that UPS is notorious for never paying or making it near impossible to get paid on a damage claim. I could make an entire thread on making insurance claims through the major carriers (USPS, UPS, and FedEx) if anyone is interested as I ship stuff for a living. There are definitely things I've learned over the years to make that process as smooth as possible (still not that smooth, but mostly successful.)

  3. #3
    Boolit Buddy
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    Also an aside, if you still have regional boxes laying around they can still be used, they just go by size and weight like regular packages. I mention that because the regional rate box sizes can be better for shipping a lot of things.

  4. #4
    Boolit Buddy
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    Pirateship has a goofy name, but it is 100% legitimate.

    Save your boxes and reuse them as needed. The USPS boxes aren't "free" as they have a much higher cost to ship than using your own. A cheap postal scale and a regular printer will cost you what you save on the first shipment doing it yourself.

    Flat rate boxes tend to be the biggest ripoff in the business unless you're shipping lead.

  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy

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    phantom
    Thanks for the tip.

    wcp

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by ddeck22 View Post
    .

    Flat rate boxes are the biggest ripoff in the business unless you're shipping lead.
    That's not been my experience. Of course in south FL I live far away from everywhere. I found that if it is over a pound the flat rate box was cheaper than using my own and buying a box to use. My days of scrounging dumpters for packing materials were over a long time ago. I also found the regional boxes to be very useful.

  7. #7
    Boolit Master

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    Does not Priority flat rate include insurance and tracking? And the boxes?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by phantom22 View Post
    Not to mention the "temporary" holiday price increases that just turn into the permanent yearly increases.

    In any case I use this opportunity to recommend the use of pirateship.com. It allows regular consumers to pay business and cubic rates for shipping USPS and UPS. The discounts vary depending on size and weight of the package, BUT it is always cheaper than at the post office and is INSANELY cheaper than at the UPS store. I've found USPS to be around 10 - 25% cheaper and UPS to be between 35-50% cheaper.

    Also, beware of flat rate boxes. They are seldom the cheaper choice and often much more expensive (BTW - you get cheaper shipping on flat rate through pirateship too). The only time I really use them is when I'm shipping lead. It's a great deal for that purpose.

    Also, beware that UPS is notorious for never paying or making it near impossible to get paid on a damage claim. I could make an entire thread on making insurance claims through the major carriers (USPS, UPS, and FedEx) if anyone is interested as I ship stuff for a living. There are definitely things I've learned over the years to make that process as smooth as possible (still not that smooth, but mostly successful.)
    Also, keep ShipStation in mind. It's what Paypal uses for it's shipping now, and is a little cheaper than standard USPS rates. It's best to set up a Shipstation account through Paypal, rather than try to do it through ShipStation directly. However, keep the address bookmarked, because getting to it from the Paypal site is goofy at times, and impossible at others...they keep changing stuff up.
    JDGabbard's Feedback Thread

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  9. #9
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyReel View Post
    That's not been my experience. Of course in south FL I live far away from everywhere. I found that if it is over a pound the flat rate box was cheaper than using my own and buying a box to use. My days of scrounging dumpters for packing materials were over a long time ago. I also found the regional boxes to be very useful.
    Yes, I guess if you have to buy the boxes. But I can send a box (my box) of the same weight and dimensions for 20-30% less using Priority Mail cubic for just over a pound. I just save them from other orders or get them from friends/family.

    I think that this is a good discussion and everyone will have slight differences, but the key is to provide options to help us all keep some of our money as opposed to sending it to the USPS or UPS.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    I use Pirate Ship site for shipping. MUCH easier to deal with than the USPS website, and you've got a choice of the 3 main shippers to choose depending on who's the cheapest.

  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyReel View Post
    That's not been my experience. Of course in south FL I live far away from everywhere. I found that if it is over a pound the flat rate box was cheaper than using my own and buying a box to use. My days of scrounging dumpters for packing materials were over a long time ago. I also found the regional boxes to be very useful.
    Flat rates are good if shipping far distances as the rates for priority mail change depending on the zone that they are shipping from and shipping to.

    Let's take an example of a padded flat rate envelope and shipping a 3 pound item.

    The last I remember is it cost me $8.30 to ship anywhere. I live in NC so it would likely be cheaper to use the padded envelope to the west coast. Locally, say Virginia, It would cost less money to use a regular priority mail box that isn't flat rate.. Probably $0.50-$1.00 cheaper.

    That is a small difference, but lets say your shipping the same item in a medium flat rate box because it won't fit in a envelope or small flat rate. That box would cost me around $14.90 to ship. To the west coast, maybe no difference, but let's say Virginia again it will be probably around $8.00.

    With a large flat rate you could end up overpaying by over $10!

    Again, it depends on your location, where it's going, and weight.

    It sounds a bit complicated, but on those shipping websites it's pretty easy to compare the prices of regular priority vs. flat rate or parcel select etc...

    I don't know how many times I've been standing in line at the USPS and someone asks for "cheapest possible". Here is where my big problem with the USPS comes in. They are a government service and not necessarily a for profit business like UPS or FedEx. I have NEVER heard them suggest the actual cheapest method. In fact, they generally suggest a much more expensive method usually involving.....flat rate boxes! You would think parcel select doesn't even exist as I've never heard that suggested.

    I finally spoke up one time because the clerk was about to rip off this couple in front of me for close to $100. They had a very large box. Probably close to 18x18x24. For that box you get the non-standard box size surcharge (money grab) of $14 on top of whatever shipping method you choose. Priority mail was something in the area of $95 plus the surcharge. I asked the people if they didn't mind some advice.

    I asked if they could ship UPS and they said they could. I looked up the dimensions and the weight and at the time PirateShip was nearly 50% cheaper than at the desk at a UPS store. Total cost to ship UPS through Pirate ship was $27.95. Retail at the UPS store was around $55.

    I can't stand when the employees try to rip people off like that.

  12. #12
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by ascast View Post
    Does not Priority flat rate include insurance and tracking? And the boxes?
    The boxes are free. The catch is that they have to have priority mail postage to send. Which, if a flat rate, can be more expensive than other options.

    Priority mail includes $100 of insurance. (Insurance is a topic for another thread if anyone cares to hear it.)

  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy
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    It also appears that when shipping USPS Priority Mail International (Canada in this case) that you can no longer use your own box. Was about $47 USD for a 2-1/2 # box. Now can only use flat rate boxes. Which a medium box is $61 USD.

    And UPS, their rates for domestic have gone through the ceiling. 2-day air for a 4# box (moderate size) has gone from about $32 to $81 bucks. And that is to a commercial address.

    I am so glad that within a few months I'm done with this. Full retirement here I come.

    45_Colt

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    Thanks for the info, I need to look at one of the vendors mentioned.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  15. #15
    Boolit Buddy
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    And if you ship larger packages outside the US, there is ipsparcel.com

    Use them for FED-X and sometime UPS. Keeps the cost down. Not the easiest service to use, but they can cut the ship to cost in half. Need an account, then create the order, then wait until it is processed and they email you the shipping forms.

    You print them, final pack, and do a drop off.

    45_Colt

  16. #16
    Boolit Master schutzen-jager's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phantom22 View Post
    The boxes are free. The catch is that they have to have priority mail postage to send. Which, if a flat rate, can be more expensive than other options.

    Priority mail includes $100 of insurance. (Insurance is a topic for another thread if anyone cares to hear it.)
    USPS priority mail is only $50.00 free insurance - iirc UPS is $100.00 -
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  17. #17
    Boolit Master Handloader109's Avatar
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    I'll add a bit. I don't ship a lot, but have an account with all three carriers. I hardly ever use usps account, I ship through PayPal and it's same discount as having a shipstation account. I ALWAYS check all three carriers if I'm shipping anything over 5 pounds. Distance make a lot of difference when using usps, if in state or neighboring state, usps can be considerably cheaper. Flat rate boxes not used a lot, tend to be 20% more costly. UPS on their website is EXPENSIVE. I've gotten a discount code for them that cust 10 to 25% off. But even then, I found using PayPal shipping I could save another 10 or so %... fedex if needed, rates usually slightly less than ups. As in all things ,ymmv

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  18. #18
    Boolit Master elmacgyver0's Avatar
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    How much effort do you put into finding "the cheapest"?
    Sometimes the "cheapest" isn't always the cheapest, time is money.

  19. #19
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by schutzen-jager View Post
    USPS priority mail is only $50.00 free insurance - iirc UPS is $100.00 -
    They have recently changed it in the last 6 months to a year to be $100. Before that, shipping through pirateship or through ebay still gave you $100 insurance which I think used to be for the "commercial" shipping service that you could get through those sites. It is now $100 for everyone. I think UPS was always $100. Good luck collecting from them though.

  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by elmacgyver0 View Post
    How much effort do you put into finding "the cheapest"?
    Sometimes the "cheapest" isn't always the cheapest, time is money.
    I usually attempt to find the cheapest as I have found that most of the time there is little difference in the shipping speed between the services. I've sent priority mail that takes over a week and have sent parcel select that has taken two days and everything in between,

    I've always thought of the different services as a bit of a scam. Especially since they stopped guaranteeing the 2 or 3 day priority delivery. I figure that my parcel package usually ends up on the same truck as the priority package. Not always the case, but I would say at least 75% of the time there is really no difference.

    I will, however, occasionally pay a little more to use FedEx over UPS. First because their drop off location is more convenient for me (time is money!), and second they will actually pay out damage claims.

    UPS is still my go to for sending golf clubs though, usually several dollars cheaper. And while I would personally pay the extra for FedEx, the cheaper shipping sells more clubs.

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