FedEx and UPS have announced rate increases for 2012. As expected both company's increases are similar. UPS increases between 5.9% and 6.9% for most services, with a simultaneous reduction of fuel surcharges enough to bring their overall increases to 4.9%. FedEx increases are 5.9% on average, with unspecified fuel surcharge changes. Fuel surcharges are a variable rate that can change from moment to moment so I'm not sure what a reduction of them means. It seems to me they could go up at any time, as a shipping company may decide. What I do know is that your costs, and my costs, have increased by at least another 5 percent.
The costs quoted in our online store during checkout come from UPS and FedEx directly, in realtime. We never mark up those quotes but we do add 3 dollars to pay for shipping materials. It is very common for our bills from UPS and FedEx to be higher than what is quoted to you, through the magic of surcharges. Believe me, I would hand deliver to you if I could!
In the last three years, shipping costs have increased over 20% and there is no sign that increases will slow down. In January 2011, our two primary shipping partners FedEx and UPS together adopted new "dimensional weight" calculations. They increased our international shipping costs by around 30 percent. Dimensional weight is a way for carriers to place value on a package's size in addition to its weight. Since then we have adopted a smaller box size for international shipments as a last ditch effort to keep your costs as low as we can.
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