First Class Shipping Max Weight back at 13oz?

[wilsonreserve]

I just noticed on some of my t-shirt listings that the shipping was set to First Class Shipping at over $6 each (what normally would be $3.45 to $4). I tend to put 15oz even if they are several ounces lighter, just to make sure I’ve got more than enough shipping so I don’t run in into any problems. I tried to figure out why it was bumping the price up so much and realized if I put in 13 oz instead of 15, it drop back down to the First Class price. I look on USPS site and sure enough it says 13oz. Did it go back down and I just totally missed the memo?

[Liz]

Check your “package type”. Is it set to “Letter”? I had the problem you described when some listing were set to “Letter” rather than “Package or thick envelope”.

[Ryanne]

yeah i noticed this too. been trying to make items 14oz or lower to get the proper price. maybe ebay’s settings are not accounting for the new postal rule prices for First class 13oz-16oz??

[Terri]

Not sure if this is related to the current problem.

I’ve always had the option checked in my account settings to pass on my Ebay postal discount to the buyer, so I never had the following issue but, when FC went up to 16 oz for the first time a year or so ago, sellers using calculated shipping who didn’t pass on the discount were finding that if they had 14 or 15 oz in their listing, it was showing the buyer the 1# rate.

For the general non-ebay seller population that walks into the Post Office, I’m pretty sure FC is still limited to 13 oz.

[So Cal Joe]

The retail price for First Class at 1 LB is like $6.45. That’s the amount that would show up in your listing. We are being charge $3.65 from USPS. In other words this gives us a nice discount.

Could that be what you are looking at ?.

[imjosh]

In your ebay settings for calculated shipping, you can choose to either pass your “ebay” shipping discount to your buyers, or charge them the full retail rate. The problem is that there is no retail price for first class packages over 13 oz (13 oz is still the limit if you buy labels from the post office). So, ebay is instead calculating the retail price for a 15 oz package which would have to ship priority mail.

The solution is to change the listing to use flat vs calculated shipping, and set it to the price you want for a 15 oz first class package.

[Ryanne]

oh, that must be it. i didn’t realize that the 13-16oz 1st class revolution was only for online labels. how strange.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Just had my first sale for a lighter item. Most of our hard goods are mostly well over a pound. But occassionaly we have some lighter weight items.

The item I just printed out a label for was dead on 1.00 lbs. so I printed out a First Class Package label and the Packing List showed the customer’s retail price of $6.65 but my cost was less a 35% discount so, my cost was only $4.30. I used Ebay’s online label printing.

So, I thought I would, for fun, just start at 1 oz. and go through all 16 ounce tiers and see what the costs would be showing under the new rates.

Here are the results:
Retail New Cost Old Costs Increase
1-4 oz.= $2.67 less 2% = $2.61 $2.60 = $.01 more
per ounce from here up:
5 oz. = $2.85 less 3% = $2.77 $2.60 = $.17 more
6 oz. = $2.85 less 9% = $2.77 $2.60 = $.17 more
7 oz. = $3.21 less 14% = $2.77 $2.60 = $.17 more
8 oz. = $3.39 less 18% = $2.77 $2.60 = $.17 more
9 oz. = $3.57 less 7% = $3.32 $3.30 = $.02 more
10 oz. = $3.75 less 8% = $3.46 $3.35 = $.12 more
11 oz. = $3.93 less 8% = $3.60 $3.40 = $.20 more
12 oz. = $4.11 less 9% = $3.74 $3.45 = $.29 more
13 oz. = $4.29 less 10% = $3.88 $3.50 = $.38 more
14 oz. = $6.65 less 40% = $4.02 $3.55 = $.47 more
15 oz. = $6.65 less 37% = $4.16 $3.60 = $.56 more
16 oz. = $6.65 less 35% = $4.30 $3.60 =

Note * When I shipped this package I put in 16 ozs. [1 lb.] even. When I printed out my Ebay label, it said 15.9 ozs. on the USPS label.

So we guess that Ebay has a few “special” situations with the USPS. 1st: Maybe that as a Top Rated Plus Seller and a Premium Store Owner, Ebay says we get USPS Commercial rates. 2nd.: Maybe the discounts fluctuate by seller level. 3rd: Maybe that the 14 oz. and up (over the 13 oz) rate is also a special deal between Ebay and the USPS????

But in any case, to us it is just a cost of doing business and all of it is some type of expense or overhead in our chart of accounts and we account for everything. On an average price sold per item of approx. $25 and we DO NOT PASS our hard earned discount on to the buyer, $.50 per item over all is no big deal.

Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

[Author]

Posts