USPS plans to temporarily charge more to ship packages during the busiest time of year: The holidays.- From October 3 to December 26, USPS is raising prices to cover "extra costs" over the holidays.
- It's indicative of a larger trend, as e-commerce sales boom and the
shipping industry still faces pandemic-driven delays.
This holiday season, for the first time ever, the US
On everything from the base level flat rate boxes and envelopes to much larger items, USPS is increasing costs between October 3 and December 26.
The reason, USPS said, is to offset increased costs during the busiest shipping season of the year.
"This temporary rate adjustment is similar to one in 2020 that anticipated heightened peak-season package and shipping demand, which typically results in extra handling costs," the press release from USPS said. "These temporary rates will keep the Postal Service competitive while providing the agency with the revenue to cover extra costs in anticipation of peak-season volume surges similar to levels experienced in 2020."
The price increases range from $0.75 more for flat rate boxes and envelopes to $5.00 more for packages as large as 70 pounds.
Last year, in 2020, USPS increased shipping rates for its commercial customers; in 2021, those shipping increases impact both commercial customers (companies) and so-called "retail" customers (read: people, not companies).
The move is indicative of a larger trend in shipping spurred by ever-increasing use of online storefronts and compounded by the impacts of the global pandemic.
Both FedEx and UPS have temporarily increased shipping costs in previous holiday seasons, and they are likely to do so again in 2021's holiday season - a symptom of the confluence of issues facing global shipping right now.
Moreover, global shipping is currently facing a logistics crisis that's impacting shipments of everything from lumber to steel. The cost to transport items continues to rise, thanks to a lack of ships, and labor, and even the massive shipping containers that are used to house items on international freight ships.
As the holiday season approaches, and demand for shipping services spikes, the situation is only expected to get worse - and USPS appears to be getting ahead of issues it faced during holiday 2020, where packages were delayed beyond critical holiday gift giving days.
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