The U.S. Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) of proposed average 9.5 percent price increase for its shipping services to take effect next year, following the conclusion of the holiday season. The filing does not include any price increase for first-class mail or any other postal service mailing product such as the Forever stamp.
The new prices, if approved, represent the first price increase in more than three years for commercial Priority Mail. The average price increase for Priority Mail is 9.8 percent; when calculated over the 3-year period since the last increase, the overall Priority Mail price change averages less than 3.3 percent per year.
The PRC will review the prices before they are scheduled to become effective on Jan. 17, 2016. The complete postal service price filing with the new prices for all Shipping Services products can be found on the PRC website at http://www.prc.gov/docs/93/93564/Notice%20CP2016-9.pdf.
Editors Insight: This shouldn’t have surprised commercial shippers, given that both FedEx and UPS have announced they are raising fuel surcharges on deliveries even though fuel prices have been declining.
Food and beverage shippers are not big users of commercial courier services, but the couriers do play a role in the growing e-commerce business.
To the extent that these higher delivery costs will affect the food and beverage industry, keep in mind that these increases are good news for Uber’s recently announced commercial delivery service, UberRUSH.
Perhaps UberRUSH and other delivery service apps will play a key role in food and beverage e-commerce. 10-18-19 By Elliot Maras
