Some tables and rates for international first-class packages
To find more, try a search on "site:pe.usps.com dmm notice 123 Price List [desired date]"
Note the use of a command -- respected by most search company servers
-- to look only at a particular group of sites (site:[URL],
a so-called "site search").
The site specification need only include the site, not the https://
protocol specification associated with a valid URL
address.
27 January 2013 rate increases more than doubled some prices.
26 Jan2014 - no change (copy of Jan2014 rates posted to Web Feb2014). .
31May2015 - modest increases
31May2015 rates follow.
This ends the
Intl. Small Pkg rate data as of 31May2015.
17Jan2016 - First-Class Package International Service changed greatly.
- Zoning: 9 different zones instead of the simpler system of Canada-Mexico+2Groups-of-Zones.
- Weight
Binning: Only 4 different weight/rates were offered: 1-8oz, 2,3, &
4 pounds. To Kenya, Zone 7, 52 oz at $36.40 increased to $57.25,
the 4 lb price.
- Rates went up, for example, for
4 lbs, $29.15->36.50 for Canada, $35.95->45.75 for Mexico, France
$41.35->$49.50 (Zone5), Kenya $42.70->$57.25
(Zone 7).
E-COMMERCE AND GLOBALIZATION OF THE PLANET DRIVE INTERNATIONAL PACKAGE TRAFFIC.
During the ten years from 2006-2015 inclusive, when international package shipping costs are climbing steeply, package volumes
(domestic and international volumes, including the First-Class Package International Service reviewed here, plus Priority boxes and envelopes)
increased 36% while first class revenues decreased
36%. (I do not know if First Class Packages
were counted in both statistics.) International
volumes/revenues are not broken out, so
comparing competitive success against UPS vs DHL is impossible.
We can only be sure that, just as email, messaging, Whatsap kill first
class letter volumes, so Internet commerce will carry package delivery
to new heights. Most recent changes to international package
delivery may be viewed as a combination of underpricing the service for
large corporations (eBay) and large exporters (China), while making the
service unnecessary complex, unavailable on-line, and too expensive for
non-corporate customers known as US citizens.
On 10April2016, the
Postal regulatory Commission ended the 2-year "exigent surcharge" of
2014, and prices were widely rolled back, but often to values never
seen before.
First Class International Small Package Service rates did change.
Since 17 January 2016, first-class international small package rates vary in 9 zones; zones 3-5 are no longer identical, and
zones 6-9 are not identical. Since no trend may be discerned across zones, there is no reason to have them. Up
to and including 3 lbs, all zones
except #8 could be combined into a single zone with no rate variation
greater than $2. A slight
scatter of less than two dollars does not justify the zones that cause
it. Far more money is lost by failure to obtain compensation from
China Post for eBay traffic than by zoning errors. The
"capture" of the Inspector General offices by most of the Cabinet-level
Departments that they are supposed to hold to account (the USPS also
has an Inspector General) raises fears for the independence of the
Office of Chief Postal Inspector at the USPS. We may never get a
solid audit of how many hundreds of millions of dollars a year the USPS
loses each year carrying 100 million items from China to the USA for free for eBay. eBay collects the sellers' fees, but we do not collect adequate postage.
2018 JANUARY 21
2019 JANUARY 27
Note that some areas of the world were deemed expensive enough, and their prices did not increase:
Mexico, China (already many times more than they ever reimburse the
USPS to ship to us -- look at the flood from eBay's Chinese merchants)
did not increase, nor did Africa & islands like the Seychelles in Indian Ocean off Africa.
2019 increases were only for heavier parcels to Middle East sheikdoms, Algeria.
The disparity between the cost to Americans of sending a parcel to China, and the flood of items under a dollar in total cost and profit and postage
flooding in from China under the bi-national postal accord driven by
eBay remains appalling -- an appalling comment on what happens to a
national
service removed from Congressional, democratic, popular supervision.
Rev 19Sept2016; 26Jan2018, 2Feb2019