USPS to Kill International Shipments!!

southcoastukes

southcoastukes

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I am in total shock!

It's that time of year for USPS to raise their rates. They give some advance warning generally. Things like:


Priority Mail Commercial Base (online postage) rates will increase by an average of 6.3% and will start at $5.05 (previously at $4.90)


There was nothing indicating what the rate changes would be on International shipments, however. Just this:


First Class Mail International packages will be renamed First Class Package International Service.


I can see now why they presented it that way. As it turns out, the new "First Class Package International Service" costs 60% more than the old rates. Obviously, they didn't want to publish a rate increase like that - therefore just call it something new.

To give an example, a 4 oz package that I sent to Finland last week for $5.34 will cost $8.88 today. The reason being given is "fuel costs". Haven't they been going down?

We really like our International customers, but now we don't know what to do. We have also always sold a lot of Ukuleles overseas - USPS was always cheapest by a long shot. Looks like that may be over. Fortunately, a private courier service brings our instruments up from Central America - I just hope they don't look at this and decide they might like an extra 60% as well.

Of course we're concerned about this from our perspective, but something of this nature is going to have a ripple effect. I'm afraid it will once again be small commerce that suffers. What a shame!
 
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it's sure worrying for us consumers o'er the waters who depend on the US as our main source of ukes, strings, tuners, cases etc. USPS International Priority has literally saved me thousands of dollars over the years and made buying from the States an affordable and attractive proposition. Will be interested to see what the raw increases end up being with flow-on effects, does sound hefty.
 
eugene ukulele said:
it's sure worrying for us consumers o'er the waters who depend on the US as our main source of ukes, strings, tuners, cases etc. USPS International Priority has literally saved me thousands of dollars over the years and made buying from the States an affordable and attractive proposition. Will be interested to see what the raw increases end up being with flow-on effects, does sound hefty.
Click to expand...

Hello Jon,

Probably as you were typing, I punched in typical weights and dimensions for a Concert Ukulele to Australia (coincidence - we've shipped over there a lot). It looks like Priority increases won't be so dramatic. I came up with a little over $80 for a Concert Ukulele with Priority.

So maybe larger items won't be hit as hard. Your tuners, strings, or in other words, anything small, are apparently the things getting the drastic hikes.
 
mm stan said:
Best to put strings in regular business envelopes....for 96 cents...:)
Click to expand...

Not a bad idea, Stan ($1.10 now). We used to do something like that. The only problem was that some countries (European especially) must have some sort of processing equpment that would shred them up (irregular surface). Sometimes they'd be delivered damaged, other times they would just "disappear".

Worse than replacing them would be the inconvenience to customers who would wait on orders to be reshipped. Sometimes twice.

Thanks, though, for the suggestion.
 
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That woulda been me. I'm now trying to decide which strings should go on which uke. :)

Would not using a box reduce the weight, and therefore cost. I think all you can do is post a notice on your site with maybe a link. It is what it is, and will be going up for everyone.

Thanks for the awesome packaging BTW. My husband and I share a PP account, so that's why the name on the order might've been a dude.
 
This is extraordinarily frustrating to Canadians. Southcoast Ukes has always been fantastic as far as shipping is concerned, but not all retailers have. It's always maddening to attempt order a single pack of strings and find that the shipping comes to over $30 (this happened to me the other day). Now it seems that this will become the norm. I'm not really sure why it should cost $30 to send a "package" that weighs about as much as a standard letter across the border. If it were easy to get instruments and strings here, I wouldn't complain, but it's kind of not.
 
I understand the disappointment, but the alternative is stopping service (can a government agency go bankrupt?). USPS loses billions a year. They are talking about stopping service a day or two a week and other measures. Quite frankly, I would rather the rates be higher than the services cut.
 
Tigeralum2001 said:
I understand the disappointment, but the alternative is stopping service (can a government agency go bankrupt?). USPS loses billions a year. They are talking about stopping service a day or two a week and other measures. Quite frankly, I would rather the rates be higher than the services cut.
Click to expand...

Well, okay, but rates for you are increasing by about 6%. Rates for us are increasing by about 60%. It's less "disappointment" and more "goodness, where is that money going to come from?".
 
I understand, but then again the US tax payers are subsidizing those cheap international rates.

I could very well be that USPS doesn't want to deal with international shipping. If anything it smells like an opening for Fed-Ex and UPS to exploit... or an error?
 
Sorry, but I'm just wondering what "cheap international rates" you're referring to. It was stated earlier in this thread that a uke could (even under the new rules) make it from the States to Australia for about $80. I often pay about $60, and I live next door to the States. I've often simply not ordered strings or other small items because the shipping would be $20 or $30. 60% on top of these rates seems...extreme. I ordered a pennywhistle today, and the shipping was $12, but that was the American rate (the seller sorts out international shipping after the transaction has been completed); I expected to have to pay at least twice that and was pleasantly surprised when the package, which will be very small and very light, shipped without any price adjustments. I understand that domestic shipping must be the priority, but for those of us who are used to searching in vain for places in our own countries that have instruments and strings in stock, it's all a little...aaaaargh.
 
USPS has another major advantage for international shipping, and that is what overseas customers have to deal with when it comes to customs. UPS and Fed Ex go through brokers which raises the customer's final cost considerably. With USPS, we're shipping using one national post office to another eliminating a very expensive and time consuming middle man. Look at the customer's landed total cost, not just the USPS rates. Also, keep invoices under $2,500.00 for lower paperwork hassles.

We ship to Australia, Germany, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, etc., and I use USPS for as much as possible.

BTW, if they'd stop giving such great rates on junk mail, they might not lose so much dough...
 
southcoastukes said:
Not a bad idea, Stan ($1.10 now). We used to do something like that. The only problem was that some countries (European especially) must have some sort of processing equpment that would shred them up (irregular surface). Sometimes they'd be delivered damaged, other times they would just "disappear".

Worse than replacing them would be the inconvenience to customers who would wait on orders to be reshipped. Sometimes twice.

Thanks, though, for the suggestion.
Click to expand...
Aloha Dirk,
I guess I was Lucky, all the strings I sent got to their destinations okay...hee hee
 
mm stan said:
Aloha Dirk,
I guess I was Lucky, all the strings I sent got to their destinations okay...hee hee
Click to expand...

I have the feeling you have always been lucky, Stan. Karma, as they say. (I must have led a bad life).

In trying to make sense of this, the only thing I can come up with is that "if it doesn't fit through a big flat-bed processing machine, we're going to charge it almost like it were a big box". After all, as you can imagine, our "boxes" are pretty small - the weight is actually not an issue - it's the classification as "package".

Maybe that's the way it needs to be, but either they were undercharging a lot before, or they've decided this is an area where the competition is slight, and they can make up some of their deficits. Whichever, whatever, it's not really right, in my opinion, to hit customers, people who depend on your product, with that sort of price hike out of the blue.

Imagine if some other segments of their customers were hit like this. If it had happened to the bulk mailers, it would probably be front page news.
 
UPS is the biggest guilty party for that in this country. FedEx isn't too bad, but of course USPS-->Posti (Itella) is the best option.

Rick Turner said:
USPS has another major advantage for international shipping, and that is what overseas customers have to deal with when it comes to customs. UPS and Fed Ex go through brokers which raises the customer's final cost considerably. With USPS, we're shipping using one national post office to another eliminating a very expensive and time consuming middle man. Look at the customer's landed total cost, not just the USPS rates. Also, keep invoices under $2,500.00 for lower paperwork hassles.

We ship to Australia, Germany, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, etc., and I use USPS for as much as possible.

BTW, if they'd stop giving such great rates on junk mail, they might not lose so much dough...
Click to expand...
 
I can see a day when, because of the dramatic rate increases, a ukulele string black market develops. You'll have people smuggling strings across the US/Canada border. There will be guys in Canada selling uke strings out of the trunk of their cars. Before long, the mafia will get involved. There will be turf fights and killings. This is just the beginning! :biglaugh:
 
Dirk: your string envelopes are a bit of an odd shape. Have you check different envelopes for international shipping, or use envelopes with a thin bubble pack on the inside? There might be some way to fool the system
 
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