Just a reminder … this starts Sunday July 9th
Here are the reference links:
Doesn’t that happen to coincide with the USPS postage rate increase and UPS Teamsters Strike?
1 Like
Now that the time is drawing near, I decided to look a little closer at this.
It looks like prices are staying the same for packages under a pound, and going down for packages over, while priority mail is either staying the same or going up?
This seems like a big win for sellers, and a potential loss for UPS, as it looks like GA will be a couple dollars cheaper than UPS for a very similar service.
Checking shipping to an address in PA from OR:
10 x 10 x 10 box
4 pounds
New GA rate: $12.47
UPS Ground: $14.53
Priority Mail: $21.60
If GA is really going to take just 1-2 days longer than PM, there will probably be fewer PM shipments too. It seems odd that USPS would want to discourage people from spending more. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Here are a couple other links that show the new prices in different formats.
1 Like
No. The current UPS deal expires July 31.
And there is no “guarantee” of any strike.
This is an official reminder to stay on topic.
You may discuss a possible UPS strike here, while adhering to all SAS Community Expectations.
So, Amazon probably started reprogramming their Buy Shipping calculations today… 
I foresee quite a mess with incorrect transit time calculations, shipping options not being available, incorrect pricing, and all just in time for Prime Day… 
5 Likes
So, Amazon probably started reprogramming their Buy Shipping calculations today
It does appear that the new prices are already programmed into Buy Shipping.
I foresee quite a mess with incorrect transit time calculations
Marbles and I have been sharing observations for the last few weeks and it seems that Amazon has been adjusting/changing/tweaking/messing with things ever since, well, maybe it’s been more like a month, since about the time people over on the NSFE were complaining about losing media mail.
So far, the changes to Buy Shipping seem to be working in our favor. Where Buy Shipping always used to treat first-class mail as a 5-transit day service for me to the east coast, now it treats it as 3.
Oddly, the regions that used to be 4 days (according to Buy Shipping) from me are still 4 days. This includes much of the central part of the country - TX, MS, NE, IL…
However, the regions that used to be 5 days (NY, NJ, FL, Carolinas, DE, RI, PA…) are now all 3 days, according to Buy Shipping.
And Buy Shipping has been offering Parcel Select as a 3-day service too, and equally surprising, Parcel Select shipments really have been arriving in 3 days, sometimes even 2!
Basically, things have been a real mess for the last several weeks, and I have no confidence that it will all be straightened out by Monday. But for now, it’s working in our favor, so I’m not going to complain.
2 Likes
Etsy Buy shipping has all USPS FC shipping converted to Ground Advantage as of Sunday Morning. Amazon does not.
1 Like
PayPal ShipStation has all USPS FC shipping converting to Ground Advantage also. If you have presets, you can easily update the USPS FC ones to the USPS Ground Advantage.
Anyone looking to get the $100 included insurance coverage with USPS Ground Advantage on Amazon will need to wait or purchase through another service (like PayPal or any other service that has already updated). Buying a label on Amazon will print out as USPS FCP and therefore will not have the included $100 insurance coverage as USPS will see it as a prior July 9, 2023 label purchase which did not include such service. Amazon may be slow to change since USPS will still accept USPS FCP labels until September 30, 2023.
1 Like
Wow, just wow. We sent 2 orders out on 7/10 at about 5:30pm Arizona time. They were delivered this morning, one to NYC and one to KY. Both ground advantage. I’m impressed.
-Ana
4 Likes
Disclaimer: My first-class packages often went cross-country in 2 days before the switch to GA, so I’m not sure if this is apples to apples.
Here’s a sample of my Amazon (FC, GA ??) shipments from Monday (from Oregon):
To KY - in transit, due by Saturday
PA - delivered today
TX - due by Saturday
CO - due tomorrow
MD - due by Saturday
Seattle, WA - delivered today
FL - delivered today
SC - due by Saturday
FL - delivered today
GA - due by Saturday
San Francisco area, delivered today
NY - due by Saturday
PA - due by Saturday
TX - due by Friday
FL - delivered today
Los Angeles area - due tomorrow
IN - due by Saturday
The NY package shows a scan in Salt Lake City, so it is definitely traveling by truck, but the ones that were delivered in Florida already obviously went by plane - as most of my FL packages typically do. 2-day delivery for FC mail is not unusual.
From PirateShip, where the labels are Ground Advantage:
To KS - due by Friday
MN - due by Friday
FL - delivered today
Los Angeles - due tomorrow
FL - due by Saturday
SC - due by Saturday
WI - due by Friday
CT - due by Saturday
IL - due by Friday
HI - out for delivery today
KY - due by Saturday
MI - due by Saturday
Things seem pretty much the same between Amazon’s first-class labels and PirateShip’s Ground Advantage, so far.
I expect that where it says due “by” Saturday, many of these will arrive earlier, and that this doesn’t mean delivery “on” Saturday. But we’ll see.
1 Like
USPS continues to accept packages with legacy labels for the services that USPS Ground Advantage replaced without penalty or assessment through September 30, 2023
“Soon” has a firm ending date of September 30, 2023.
Agreed:
Just did my first Ground Advantage on Etsy. I am still doing First Class on Amazon. Doesn’t really matter as long as they make it to the customer.
2 Likes
Looks like we can fully abandon Priority Mail.
5 Lb Cubic .5 to Zone 8:
Priority: $24.97
Ground Advantage: $13.15
Anyone else going full Ground Advantage?
Yes … as long as the delivery times stay within the 2 to 5 day given estimates. It was nice to have the $100 included insurance on top of the lower rates. We might still use PM Flat Rate Envelope for zone 7 and zone 8 but that will depend on how USPS ends up processing the GA to those zones (speed of delivery).
2 Likes
We’re still using quite a bit of Priority Mail. The PM Cubic rates are less than GA in some cases. And for Zones 7 & 8 Flat Rate PM boxes are frequently less than GA. Some of the GA rates are pennies less than PM, so we use the free PM boxes instead of plain brown boxes which aren’t free.
2 Likes
The Cubic Ground Advantage prices are slightly lower than the reg GA
Charts is only from 1 to 15 lbs - that’s just our normal range
Mouse over to enlarge charts
2 Likes
We are unable to buy Ground Advantage for packages going to Puerto Rico, we can only buy First Class.
Is it possible, that, in the months and months of planning for delayed execution of Ground Advantage, that someone at Amazon forgot to program it for Puerto Rico?
Soon we will no longer be able to purchase First Class for Puerto Rico…so I wonder what will be.
We had a post going on NSFE about other charges that involved Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope pricing. Amazon charged us $7.60 and then up charged us 6 weeks later to $8.05 ($0.45 per unit) for all of our shipments that went to Hawaii in June. In our last exchange with KJ_Amazon, KJ said that the $7.60 price was in error because it was “offshore”. This would mean that Amazon would have issues with Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, any US territories and APO/FPO addresses because they are all “offshore”. We pushed back on it to KJ (because ours was Priority Mail Flat Rate which should be one price up to 70lbs to any US destination). Haven’t had a final response yet but we would suspect that your issue is involved in this shipping circus.
2 Likes