Inflationary Shipping Rates!!

Holy guacamole, today I paid $9.97 USPS for a shaving soap sample + one bar of body soap!! Now I do not blame the merchants, but rather the bottomless money pit that is USPS + inflation!! 

Holy guacamole, today I paid $9.97 USPS for a shaving soap sample + one bar of body soap!! Now I do not blame the merchants, but rather the bottomless money pit that is USPS + inflation!! 

... and remember, USPS is still cheaper than FedEx or UPS (DHL too, if you can find them in your town). Not to mention, if DeJoy is to be believed, they're still losing money on the whole thing. Inflation sucks!

Last night I was remembering my first job 31-ish years ago. I was making a little less than 1/3 minimum wage now. So, you'd think we made progress on a "living wage"... until you see the cost of groceries... A gallon of Milk was $1.05 in 1991, now it's 4.41 (I think I copied those right). Over 400% inflation, yet corporate minimum wage, and likely the government cost of living charts, have only moved up a hair over 300%. Yeowch!

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Holy guacamole, today I paid $9.97 USPS for a shaving soap sample + one bar of body soap!! Now I do not blame the merchants, but rather the bottomless money pit that is USPS + inflation!! 

... and remember, USPS is still cheaper than FedEx or UPS (DHL too, if you can find them in your town). Not to mention, if DeJoy is to be believed, they're still losing money on the whole thing. Inflation sucks!

Last night I was remembering my first job 31-ish years ago. I was making a little less than 1/3 minimum wage now. So,  you'd think we made progress on a "living wage"... until you see the cost of groceries... A gallon of Milk was $1.05 in 1991, now it's 4.41 (I think I copied those right). Over 400% inflation, yet corporate minimum wage, and likely the government cost of living charts, have only moved up a hair over 300%. Yeowch!

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That is scary stuff, Paul.  And where I work, I am supposedly at the top of the wage scale, so I haven't seen a wage increase in 5 years or more. A loaf of non-store brand bread is $4 or more (depending on how fancy or organic you want it!), and that has me thinking I need to fire up the bread machine every other day and just make my own bread. The every other day is because some of us here thinks it goes stale in 48 hrs while others will eat anything 

Holy guacamole, today I paid $9.97 USPS for a shaving soap sample + one bar of body soap!! Now I do not blame the merchants, but rather the bottomless money pit that is USPS + inflation!! 

I was reading about the HCS Gibbs replica and that the spring that Razor Emporium uses for the Rex Ambassador works in the Gibbs and makes it better supposedly. And RE sells the spring separately. For $10. And standard shipping is.... wait for it.... almost $15!! What?! First Class Mail is probably less than $5 for a package or even $8 for the small flat rate box, but $15?!

In 1970, the cost of a 1st class postage stamp was 6 cents. In January 2023, that price will increase to 63 cents, more than a 10 fold increase over 50 years.

However, that is not the worst instance of inflation. In 1970, Medicare cost senior citizens $5.30 per month for part B premiums. Today, those premiums cost $170.10 per month. That is an increase of 32 fold.

The problem with USPS costs is that much of the cost of mail delivery used to be covered largely by the segment of mails considered to be Direct Mail. That included things like magazines, catalogs, and advertisements. For example, Publishers Clearing House used to send one of their advertising packages to every household in the USA. They expected fewer than 1% of households to respond, with everything else going in the trash or recycle bin. That huge volume of mail covered a significant portion of the operating costs of the USPS. Today, there are still a few such mailing such as local grocery store ads and clipper magazines. However, most direct mail sent on a national scale is highly targeted to those from whom the advertisers expect to get a greater percentage of response. Advertisers now use data collected by Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to target email and pop-up ad campaigns to those who have shown interest in specific items or topics. These electronic ads are significantly less expensive than the costs of printing and mailing. Thus, the unwanted paper in your mailbox has decreased; unwanted phone calls and emails have increased. That change in advertiser behavior has significantly impacted the income stream of USPS. Today the cost of mail delivery for letters and packages has to more closely correspond with the actual cost of delivery.

In 1970, the cost of a 1st class postage stamp was 6 cents. In January 2023, that price will increase to 63 cents, more than a 10 fold increase over 50 years.

However, that is not the worst instance of inflation. In 1970, Medicare cost senior citizens $5.30 per month for part B premiums. Today, those premiums cost $170.10 per month. That is an increase of 32 fold.

The problem with USPS costs is that much of the cost of mail delivery used to be covered largely by the segment of mails considered to be Direct Mail. That included things like magazines, catalogs, and advertisements. For example, Publishers Clearing House used to send one of their advertising packages to every household in the USA. They expected fewer than 1% of households to respond, with everything else going in the trash or recycle bin. That huge volume of mail covered a significant portion of the operating costs of the USPS. Today, there are still a few such mailing such as local grocery store ads and clipper magazines. However, most direct mail sent on a national scale is highly targeted to those from whom the advertisers expect to get a greater percentage of response. Advertisers now use data collected by Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to target email and pop-up ad campaigns to those who have shown interest in specific items or topics. These electronic ads are significantly less expensive than the costs of printing and mailing. Thus, the unwanted paper in your mailbox has decreased; unwanted phone calls and emails have increased. That change in advertiser behavior has significantly impacted the income stream of USPS. Today the cost of mail delivery for letters and packages has to more closely correspond with the actual cost of delivery.

Wow. That's very interesting and makes a lot of sense. According to the interwebs, minimum wage was $1.45 in 1970. Thus, it's a bit over 10x as high. That correlates with the postage stamp. Unfortunately, insurance companies really took folks to the cleaners, I guess.

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To be fair, under 1lb packages are <$5 USPS First Class. Over that and you’re in priority for ~$10.

To be fair, under 1lb packages are <$5 USPS First Class. Over that and you’re in priority for ~$10.

Well...duh. You can only ship first class if it's under a pound. Something tells me a tiny spring weighs way less than that. Razor Emporium is scamming here (surprise, surprise). They aren't the only vendor I've seen with exorbitant shipping rates either. I don't have a problem paying a little extra to accommodate handling/packing etc, but $10 on top of somrthing that should only cost $5 to ship is ridiculous.

Killing the used market. If I can't get more than $25 shipped for something, then it's not really worth the time and effort to bother selling it these days.

It looks like the Priority Mail rate for small flat rate boxes is going DOWN by 20 cents in January from $10.40 to $10.20. However, many commercial shippers get lower rates because they ship a high volume of parcels.

One form of distribution that seems to be more common is last mile delivery. A carrier like UPS or FedEx ground will ship a lot of packages from a distribution warehouse to the local mail sorting center. The final distribution to your mailbox will be done by USPS. If you are sent a USPS tracking number and the tracking shows the post office is still waiting for receipt of the package several days later, that is exactly what might be happening with your package.