Aaah - Thank you. I have never noticed this, and it’s probably because I wasn’t paying attention. Will do so now!
I wasn’t either. And to be honest (and foolish) I never did check to see how many surcharges we received. But I clearly remember that post and from that day on we made the switch.
I don’t like UPS…Almost all my packages are under 3 ounces.
There are several potential ones. Besides the fuel surcharges, UPS also tacks on surcharges for residential delivery, they charge (at the full, non-Amazon discounted) rate for return shipping on packages that are non-deliverable or refused, you have to pay to schedule a pick-up…
In my case, I never leave home anymore. USPS comes to me every day, and UPS only comes when they have something to deliver. For me to send something out without paying to schedule a delivery, I have to leave my package outside on the porch with a note for the driver to take it (and hope they notice).
Also, from my area, first-class mail is lightning fast and if I’m sending something to a state out east (from Oregon), USPS can get it there in 2-3 days, while UPS often takes 5.
I like the UPS store - he gives me awesome deals on my shipping supplies.
I can’t imagine shipping supplies are cheap at the UPS store, even with discounts. You might start a new thread for people to share some alternate suppliers with you. 
I must have something set wrong – the UPS Ground option has never been under like $8 for me, never ever…
Everything is under 16 ounces…more like 4-8 ounces on average. But for UPS it says 1 lb. and nothing by ounce.
You’re right, UPS only charges by the pound, no price variations for ounces.
The discount UPS price (Amazon Sponsored Discount) only appears when another carrier offers a lower/better rate and Amazon wants you to use UPS instead. I’m sure they get a cut from our UPS labels, which must be why they do it. Lots of discussion on the ‘why’ in the old forums, but no one ever knew for sure.
There are a couple reasons why you might not be seeing it. Do you mind sharing what state you’re in?
Also, how are your shipping templates set up exactly? Because if Buy Shipping is offering you first-class mail, you should also see UPS Ground trying to beat it on at least some of your orders. Odd that you aren’t. Do you have UPS listed as one of your preferred carriers in your Buy Shipping Preferences? That shouldn’t matter, but it might.
Go here to check (remove the space) -
sellercentral .amazon.com/sbr/buyShippingPreferences
Make sure you see UPS listed
Yes, I hadn’t noticed those before so I will pay closer attention now! I only use the UPS option for my things that are over a pound - they beat USPS Priority quite often, but I need to watch for the charges.
I just said UPS store for ease - It’s a Packaging Accessories store that does UPS shipping. I used to buy in bulk from Uline but he beats their prices by a lot (if I buy cases).
I just said UPS store for ease - It’s a Packaging Accessories store that does UPS shipping.
Ah… Curious - can you get your packages out the same day dropping them off there? Before covid, I would occasionally ship with UPS and could take Ground packages to the local UPS store (really the UPS store) up until 6 pm to get them out that same day.
Depends on the store.
Most ups stores have a fixed time for ground pickup. Same goes with FedEx.
In my case I can drop FedEx in the store that’s convenient for me until 5pm and they’re shipped that same day.
Ups, I’m able to drop at their hub, so I’m able to drop until 9 pm. The ups store that is close to
My house however (I live 26 miles from my office 
) accepts packages but has a cutoff time of 3 pm
I have both ups and FedEx daily pickup at my warehouse, those are guaranteed same day shipping.
I got an order today to Los Angeles that will serve as a good example of how UPS Sponsored Discounts change to compete against ‘other’ services.
We all hopefully know that the options that appear in Buy Shipping are chosen based on your order’s final ‘deliver by’ date, and this date is established by your shipping template and handling time. Anyone who doesn’t know that, feel free to ask for more details. 
This is my order to LA -
The final deliver-by date is Feb 10, so that’s the date Buy Shipping checks each service against to decide if it should be offered or not.
Buy Shipping is programmed so that first-class mail is designated as either a 3, 4, or 5 day service, depending on the destination. Southern CA is marked as 3 days from Oregon, it will differ for sellers elsewhere.
That means that if I ship this on Saturday, But Shipping decides it will arrive on Wednesday (3 days later, not counting Sunday). If Wednesday is on or before Feb 10, then first-class will be offered. If I ship on Monday, delivery will be estimated on Thursday, which is still before Feb 10, so first-class will still be offered. If I wait to ship until Wednesday, delivery would be calculated as next Saturday (Wed + 3 days), which is after Feb 10, so at that point, first-class would disappear, and the $4.22 UPS Sponsored Discount along with it.
The Sponsored Discounts seem to be based on times when UPS is a viable option to a service provided by another carrier, but would normally be ruled out by us for costing too much. By offering UPS at a price comparable to the competing service, Amazon is hoping we’ll choose UPS instead of what we otherwise would.
Here’s how it looks in action:
If shipped today, FC will deliver by the deadline, and UPS is there to compete.
If shipped on Monday… 
same story
The same for Tuesday. You can see that the ‘estimated delivery date’ shifts forward by a day as the Ship Date does, but through Tuesday, first-class mail still meets the Feb 10 deadline, and so UPS Ground is still there to compete.
But then… when you get to Wednesday, the cheaper services (including Ground) all disappear because none of them can make delivery on time, according to Buy Shipping.
Since there is no ‘cheaper/better’ option for UPS to compete with, there is no need to offer us any discount. 
This is what we get:
Now… by comparison, here is an order going to Florida (from Oregon). Buy Shipping is programmed to treat FL as 5 days from Oregon, so shipping on Saturday results in an estimated delivery date of next Friday.
UPS Ground is also 5 days, so UPS Ground, in this case, is not treated as ‘better/faster’ when compared to first-class. For this order, the UPS sponsored discount is on UPS 3-day select (at 9.07) which is attempting to compete with USPS priority mail (by weight/not flat-rate envelope).
You don’t see any UPS discount on the main page, because at 9.07, it’s not one of the three lowest priced offers.
But if you open the window to see all options, you’ll see it there.
Currently, I see UPS discounts competing with first-class on orders that are in my ‘3 day’ FC region, and against priority mail everywhere else. Your mileage may vary.
Yes, they scan them and I drop off around 3:30-4 and UPS picks up around 6. I take my FBA shipments there too and they’re delivered to the FC the next day. It helps that I’m in the suburb of a major hub city.
I see the same thing - UPS doesn’t pop up for outliers (usually upper midwest or upper northeast). And I always check that ‘delivered by’ date - if UPS is cheaper but will deliver a day later, but the savings is only a couple pennies, I’ll go with Priority instead. You know, to “delight my customer” 
I am in Alabama (no, I don’t mind sharing – ain’t nothing you can’t see when googling my store name anyways.).
I looked at my shipping settings and I only have USPS chosen. So I did add UPS.
I too have two local places to take UPS packages, but 99% of mine are USPS under 16 ounces Maybe this will help with the Timbuktu destinations (like where the customer does not have a mail box because the town is so small and has no mailman). I’ll have to drive across town to drop them off and yes their cut off too is about 6 pm at the UPS Store and 4 pm at the closer place.
It was under the Free Economy Setting that I completely missed. I was using the Standard section to offer free shipping. For the first region (like 99% of the states), the longest I could set that to was 2-3 days. I missed using the Free Economy section where you could choose 3-5 days. So if a person ordered over the weekend to Oregon, CA, or Washington State, it would mess me up because they need 5 days from Alabama…
Trying to pay attention to this, but have no idea where to see if I’ve been assessed after-the-fact fuel surcharges. Anyone know offhand?
Perfect, thank you kindly. Just checked and nothing in the last 90 days and I’ve used UPS quite a bit for larger things. I will bookmark and check again periodically.
The thing is though, for USPS services, you can’t rely on the ‘delivery date’ that Buy Shipping gives you at all - because it isn’t based in real data.
UPS and FedEx have pretty reliable systems. They know exactly how many days it will take a package to go from Point A to Point B and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, it usually takes exactly that many days. So Amazon can pull the data from these carrier’s systems and it will be pretty much right on the money.
But they don’t do that with USPS. You can’t rely on the information Amazon gives for USPS services because it isn’t based on data. The way they should do it, IMO, is to gather historical data based on actual past shipments to determine how long priority mail should take.
This is how I do it in my head. I have plenty of experience from shipping plenty of packages to know that generally, first-class mail will travel faster than priority mail from my location. It’s weird, and seems counterintuitive, but that’s how it is. PM seems to be routed differently, on routes that are subject to more delays.
I have a much more reliable idea than Amazon about the delivery date for USPS services.
But Amazon has programmed Buy Shipping to use a stupid, ‘flat number’ formula to decide that FC packages take either 3, 4, or 5 days transit and it’s completely disconnected from reality.
Here’s a perfect example. Here’s an order I have going to San Jose. Buy Shipping is programmed to treat northern CA as 3 days from me (except San Francisco, which they’ve recently changed to 5 days…)
Shipping on Monday, But Shipping says delivery on Thursday = 3 days
Knowing that Buy Shipping treats Northern CA as 3 days, I set my shipping templates to match that. In the case of this order, the ‘deliver by’ date is Fri, Feb 10 so the Thursday arrival calculated by Buy Shipping falls before that so first-class is available. Normally this works great.
But here’s one going to San Francisco. Still in northern CA, so per my shipping templates, the ‘deliver by’ date is Friday. But for whatever dumb reason, Amazon recently changed Buy Shipping to treat San Francisco as a 5-day transit time. That would mean that, if shipped on Monday, Buy Shipping would say delivery would be on Saturday. That’s after the Friday deliver-by date, so no first-class is offered.
This is, of course, patently ridiculous, because these two cities are adjacent to each other, only an hour apart.
The package to San Francisco will get there just as fast as the one to San Jose. SMH…
The bottom line here is that, for USPS services, Buy Shipping’s dates should not be relied on.
I only ship first class free to all buyers. I have production time set for 3 days but do same day or next day shipping. The shipping template won’t let me increase the 2-4 days for shipping to all states. Items under $10 are shipped without tracking which does not ding my metrics. I don’t sell anywhere outside the US.
If you want 3-5 days, you should be able to add it under free economy. If you then change standard to 5-8 days, your offers should show 3-5 days to buyers because Amazon picks the ‘best’ option to display.
When comparing no-charge 3-5 day vs no-charge 5-8 day, they should pick the 3-5 day. It doesn’t matter if it’s listed as free economy or standard, as far as I know.
Do you have all 3 of these options in your Standard settings?
I believe handmade sellers have different selections, but I’m not in handmade so can’t see what you/they see.
For the first region (like 99% of the states), the longest I could set that to was 2-3 days.
Could you share a screen grab of the drop-down box for your standard settings? It’s strange that you only have 2-3 days. That must be something particularly for handmade sellers, but why would they demand such faster shipment from your group? Weird!!
Do you have different regions established in your Standard section too? You can tweak the settings Amazon starts you off with and create different groups for different states, and give them different handling times.
Here are my settings from one of my templates -
Depending on the regions, I have different options in the drop-down box too. For my home state, Oregon, I have all these choices…
But for most states, I just have these -
I’m in Handmade and the selections may be different. This is my template for SFP just in case that makes a difference. I remember in the past being able to see economy shipping. 2-4 days is grayed out and I can’t change it. In the past, I used to have it set at 3-5 days, but that is not an option anymore.
