USPS Postage Decrease Scheduled For 4-10-2016

[MailGuru]

Most of you who mail in the US probably already know this, but, on the off-chance that you didn't, postage will DECREASE approximately 4.2% for all categories on April 10, 2016. Even the First Class stamp will go from the current $0.49 to $0.47. This "Price Rollback" is due to the Exigent Price increase that the USPS received in 2013 for losses due to the "Great Recession". The Postal Regulatory Commission granted that price increase, but, only for the period of time it would take the USPS to recoup it's losses. The USPS will have recovered it's losses by April 9, 2016, so, in accordance with the PRC's ruling, they must roll back that price increase. You can get more information, and, the detail price reductions for each category by going to the USPS's Postal Explorer page at pe.usps.com and looking at the DMM Advisory.

Oh, I should add here that, the roll back will occur only if Congress, or, the PRC does not interfere (absent any Congressional action), but, at this time, the USPS does not expect that to happen, and, the rollback will be implemented as scheduled.

 

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Nice. You don't see price decreases in shipping/transportation too often.

 

[MailGuru]

That's true. Actually, it's a "Historic Event". The last postage decrease happened in 1903 - over a hundred years ago!

 

[[email protected]]

I remember shipping via UPS and FedEx in the 90's and they starting sending out these fuel surcharge increase notices because the price of gas was going up. This happened several times over the past 20+ years.

Kind of funny though that in the past two years, oil and gas prices have been tanking, especially the last few months...while at the same time I've gotten no notices of fuel surcharge decreases.

See to the rest of the world, a surcharge is an EXTRAORDINARY item to cover a cost. It should be temporary in theory but can last indefinitely. However once the extraordinary reason is gone, as is in the gas case, then the surcharge should reduce or be done away with.

Between surcharges, dimensional shipping, residential surcharges (another bogus load of crap), and denying damage claims on the first round by default, as well as billings fraud -- we don't use FedEx or UPS anymore.

I have to give some credit to the postal service. The one year I think we shipped 1200 packages or so and only two damage claims were filed. Out of all the damage claims ever filed I think two were denied, one was filed late and the other they wanted the buyer to bring the item to the local post office and they didn't. A much much better performance than the other carriers. And although I'd like to see some postage rates go down, you have to admit that sending a letter for less than half a buck from anywhere to anywhere in the country is pretty cheap.