U.S. Businesses Prepare for Rising Shipping Rates
January 14 2016 - 9:01AM
Business Wire
Higher Costs, Growing Complexity and
Increasing Volume of Sending Prompt Businesses to Optimize Shipping
Operations
Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today noted that recent rate
increases for shipping services by UPS and FedEx and the pending
January 17th rate increase for U.S. Postal Service (USPS) shipping
services have prompted businesses -- especially small retailers and
e-retailers -- to look for new and innovative solutions to optimize
their mission-critical shipping operations. In addition to the
latest round of price increases and surcharges, businesses across
the country continue to grapple with exploding parcel volumes and
the complexity of managing multiple disparate carrier rate
structures and systems.
“In this new world of commerce, shipping has become even more
critical as businesses compete for and serve clients remotely and
connect with their vendors and suppliers,” said Jeff Crouse, Vice
President at Pitney Bowes. “However, small and medium businesses in
particular face an uphill challenge to manage rising costs,
increasing complexity and growing volume of sending, which includes
everything an organization sends out, from parcels and overnight
envelopes to bills and statements,”
Given the critically important role of shipping in business,
here are a few points every shipper should know about the latest
increase by each major carrier:
UPS
- On December 28th, 2015, the rates for
UPS® Ground services increased an average net 4.9%.
- The rates for UPS Air and International
services increased an average net 5.2%.
FedEx
- Effective January 4th, FedEx® increased
rates by 4.9 percent and implemented Dimensional Weight pricing on
all shipments.
- The following services were impacted by
this rate change:
- FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery®,
FedEx SmartPost®, FedEx Freight, FedEx® Retail, and FedEx One
Rate
- Other increases included:
- FedEx Home Delivery
(residential) Delivery Area Surcharge – increased
from $2.85 to $3.00
- FedEx Ground Home
Delivery Residential Delivery Charge – increased
from $2.90 to $3.10
USPS
- The January 17th rate change will
affect the USPS® Shipping Services products, including:
- Priority Mail®, Priority Mail Express™,
First-Class Package Service™, Parcel Select ®, and Standard Post™
(which is renamed as Retail Ground).
- The average Shipping Services price
change is 9.5 percent which results in an average shipping price of
less than $5.50 per shipment across all shipping products.
- There is no price increase for
First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, or any other Postal Service
Mailing product. Meter users still qualify for a ½ cent per piece
discount.
Today, more than ever, shipping and mailing power commerce. New
technology and tools are becoming available to help businesses of
all sizes simplify their sending operations by integrating shipping
and mailing, connecting physical sending with digital systems and
data, and delivering consolidated accounting and reporting
functions.
Here are three recommendations you can do now to optimize your
sending operations and manage costs:
- Match your sending strategy to your
customer and business needs. Select the best mix of carriers
that best serves your customers’ delivery requirements and meets
your business objectives. In other words, don’t put all of your
eggs in one basket.
- Leverage new technology. New
cloud-based sending solutions can help you deploy a consistent,
unified and scalable approach to sending across locations and
carriers to gain greater control and visibility into the true cost
of sending within your organization. New sending technology can
enable your organization to:
- Facilitate multi-carrier management
enabling you to select the best carrier for each parcel based on a
simple view of service level, cost and value
- Initiate carrier pickup in real-time
from the desktop, tablet or mobile device
- Automatically reconcile all sending
charges to one account
- Improve the package receipt process, so
inbound tracking capability becomes as convenient as outbound
shipping
- Eliminate wasted space. With
both FedEx and UPS imposing Dimensional Weight Rating on all
parcels, outer packaging should consist only of that which is
necessary to properly secure the enclosed items and provide
protection during transport. Don’t ship small items in a big
box.
Pitney Bowes is committed to helping businesses of all sizes
simplify their sending operations and thrive in the connected and
borderless world of commerce. On January 12, the company announced
its acquisition of Enroute Systems Corporation, a cloud-based,
software-as-a-service enterprise retail and fulfillment solutions
company to further expand its global ecommerce offerings for
companies throughout the retail supply chain.
For more information on how to simplify your sending operations,
visit www.pitneybowes.com.
About Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI) is a global technology company offering
innovative products and solutions that enable commerce in the areas
of global ecommerce, shipping and mailing, location intelligence,
customer engagement and customer information management. More than
1.5 million clients in approximately 100 countries around the world
rely on products, solutions and services from Pitney Bowes. For
additional information, visit Pitney Bowes at www.pb.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160114005668/en/
Pitney Bowes Inc.Dan Burris,
203-449-7635daniel.burris@pb.com
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI)
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