$90 "flat fee" per month to add a carrier that ShipStation doesn't provide? - Not Fair!!

@sajeed, 

We agree. This is anti-competitive practice and we suggest you join in along with numerous other users in sending a letter to the FTC hotline. Here is a boilerplate template @shipping54 drafted earlier today. 

Their email is: antitrust@ftc.gov

Dear Federal Trade Commission,

I am writing to bring your attention to what appears to be a significant antitrust issue concerning Auctane, a shipping and logistics conglomerate.

Over the past year, Auctane has acquired numerous shipping companies, including but not limited to ShipStation, Stamps.com , Endicia, Shipengine, and Global Post (https://auctane.com/products/ ). These acquisitions, in themselves, may not pose a concern. However, the manner in which Auctane has manipulated its new market power is a cause for worry.

Auctane recently announced rate hikes of 100% across these platforms, a move that may cause substantial financial strain on the numerous businesses and consumers that rely on their services. More worryingly, they have also instituted a monthly fee for users to access outside carriers such as FedEx and DHL. This blatant discouragement of competition seems designed to force customers into using Auctane's own pre-negotiated rates with USPS and UPS.

The significant market consolidation and pricing practices Auctane has demonstrated are deeply concerning. Not only does this appear to lessen competition in the shipping and logistics industry, but it also seems to unfairly disadvantage tens of thousands of companies that depend on these services for their businesses. It is my belief that these actions amount to anti-competitive practices and are deserving of an antitrust investigation.

A healthy competitive market is crucial for both businesses and consumers. It fosters innovation, drives down prices, and ensures quality service delivery. Auctane's actions appear to be detrimental to these principles.

I urge the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Auctane's actions and intervene as necessary to protect consumers, businesses, and the overall health of the shipping and logistics industry.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I am available to provide any additional information that may assist in your investigation.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME, TITLE, and CONTACT INFO - Always include a physical address too]

We've been  ShipStation users since 2016. I'm sensitive to price increases, inflation, cost of doing business, etc. but for us to go from $69.99/mo to $99.99+$40 (for carrier integration) is absurd. That's DOUBLE - if we could double our revenue we'd be delighted.

We've been testing a new platform called Veeqo (https://www.veeqo.com/pricing) which is now owned by Amazon but it's also completely FREE and so far it has all the same functionality we are currently using in ShipStation. It connects our marketplaces, has carrier discounts, has multiple ship-from locations, allows our carrier accounts (no charge) and even does some pretty amazing reporting and inventory tracking. So far, the only thing I don't see is returns management (but we don't use this). ALSO the printer/scale integration is (in my opinion) much better than ShipStation -- we are considering moving to Veeqo for our shipping platform. It's kind of sad, that after so many years but this increase has pushed us to explore other options, and so far it looks like Veeqo will be the way to go for us. 

If anyone else has a chance to take a look at it, I'd like your comments. 

Chris/Opzit LLC

My business has to use our own DHL and UPS accounts to send hazardous goods sometimes because Shipstation's carrier contracts don't allow hazmat. We've been with Shipstation for 5 years and will now be looking elsewhere. Plus their support is awful.

Longtime Shipstation customer here. Our business also requires using our own FedEx account for legal and hazardous goods shipping. We are obligated to be the shipper of record, and cannot rely only on built in carriers. We do utilize some of Shipstations services like USPS and GlobalPost.

We find this fee arbitrary and excessive! Outrageous on many levels. I hope something is done to correct this disastrous new fee structure. I could imagine a small reasonable fee to add our 3rd party accounts, but this is a massive increase. We will be actively searching for a new platform to use.

We also wrote the FTC using the form letter, adding our own details too. We can hope for something to come of it.

Will definitely to look for alternative of shipstation after 5 yrs, now they are finding everything possible to charge the customers. We are getting some good result from others already.

Even after canceling our account, Shipstation is persistent at wanting to charge your card.  I can't even log back in to my account! We were doing good stopping it at first, but then they were able to get a charge to go through, even though we canceled in plenty of time and have not used it since last month.

Good riddance Shipstation.

Feel like a late bloomer, just realzing the WTF is going on.  I don't have TIME to set something up elsewhere, but I think I have to make time.

DARN IT!