High UPS by shipstation rates

​@Josh2026 ​@sales244 yes, she wrote back to me and connected me with the Manager for Escalations Team. He is checking right now to see that the problem might be. I provided many examples of the shipping difference so I’ll keep you guys updated

Also, ​@JuanAdmin Can we get FedEx ground by shipstation to be able to ship multiple package shipments?  Only having UPS for multiple packages is extremely limiting during outage or down times.

That probably won’t be possible if it’s not natively on there. My workaround, from my support days, was telling customers to do multi package shipments. 

I’ll ping escalations again today to see if there’s been any movements on this issue. I really do apologize for this. 

Can I/we formally request that to be a feature that can be added?  I belive some of the other shipping platforms/aggregators have the ability for fedex to ship multi-package shipments on thier discounted rates.

Well, at least its progress I suppose………Some of the other platforms are starting to look enticing.

Well, at least its progress I suppose………Some of the other platforms are starting to look enticing.

​@grant99 I just got off the phone with support, looks like this is effecting all shipstaion users.  They still couldn't give me an answer, but they did say a case was opened with UPS, so it looks like it's a UPS API issue again 

Not being able to see your post after you hit send is kind of annoying.  That is the reason for double posts. 

​@JuanAdmin  We need an update on this?  Today will be a week from the first day of the issue.  I am going to have to start shipping on my regular accounts and eat the difference.   I would like a call from a customer support manager to see about compensation for this.  I can DM you my case number

​@Josh2026 yes no update from our end either. This is absolutely ridiculous. Hopefully it gets resolved fast!

​@grant99  agree completely,  you would think that shipstaion would come to an absolute grinding stop, as I imagine a big reason people use SS is the rate discounts, if not the biggest reason to use them.  I mean the platform is neat and has some cool features but the rates are my reason for using them.

You’d be surprised how many people only ship USPS and don’t use UPS at all or very rarely.  I’m like +/- 90% USPS so I would imagine there are people out there shipping only small / light items who ship exclusively USPS.  They did have a hiccup on Monday with USPS cubic rates, but that got cleared up within 24 hours.  This one has been a week with no resolution in sight.

​@Josh2026 not the best news. This was their response: 

“Hey Grant, 
 
After speaking with my team, who is currently working with UPS, this is the information we were provided. 
 
We’ve confirmed directly with UPS that the pricing being shown is valid. UPS has advised that promotional and dynamic pricing can change at any time, so rates may fluctuate based on the current pricing available from UPS.
I understand that changes like this can be frustrating, especially when you’re expecting a previously displayed rate. However, based on our confirmation with UPS, the current pricing is accurate and valid.”

I’m still not convinced this is right since my shipping costs for the same packages to the same zones have been exactly the same for the past 5 months. Like one of my packages shipping to Zone 7 costs $75.56 and now its $167.54. I’ve never paid any other price other than $75.56 for 5 months straight. Which make no sense how the price can increase 122% overnight. I’m asking if they can provide a reason for this

I'm not convinced either, plus i can't find any documentation on a rate increase that happened last week.  We need to know what the base rate is that the “discount” comes off of.  if these current rates that we see are the new normal, i do believe the proverbial “cr*p just hit the fan “ for consumers,  My retail accounts are going to have literal fits, but I'm not sure what else to do if this is going to affect everyone.  If it's this much of an increase i wonder if they are going to increase on the people in “locked in rates”      

It’s actually kind of easy to explain - most of the year they need smaller to mid size shippers to fill up the trucks.  So they charge a lot less.  September - December that’s not the case.  That’s what I figured the answer was when the problem wasn’t resolved in a couple of days.  It’s unfortunate but it is what it is.  Hopefully the good rates will be back in January.  We’ll see

I do understand your point, but why over 100% increases?  I could see 5-10% maybe even 20% for super large or oversized,  but some of these I'm seeing a just crazy, Here is one i saw earlier today.  x7 17x12x17 @ 12 LBS each costed $94 back in july, today for 8 of those boxes, so just one more box, its saying $231  That's from NC TO CA 

I think the rates we were getting were Amazon level discounts (or near Amazon level discounts, anyway).  Remember - Amazon and UPS severed ties a couple of years ago - so they needed to replace that volume.  They don’t need to do that right now.  I agree that the jump was pretty extreme but I guess they don’t care since we don’t have too many other options.  FedEx is hot garbage and USPS is a lot more for big/heavy packages.  

​@sales244 that is a good point you bring up. Do you have much experience with shipping it seems like? I’ll let you know what the escalation team comes back with for the increase in cost. 

That does make sense, I guess with fuel right now and if they don't need the volume, why give away free money.   It does feel like a rug pull that there was no rate increase notice, the only thing i can find says the holiday charges do not start until September 27th for the first round, the October 25th for the 2nd round.

Been shipping for almost 30 years.  Not my first rug pull with UPS.  FedEx used to offer a friend of mine amazing rates on One Rate 2-day packages (paks, small/medium boxes, etc).  I used them for a little while until they started billing me insane amounts for things that weren’t mathematically possible (i.e. padded paks billed at the large box rate because they said were over the dimensions.  I talked to my UPS rep and they actually beat the FedEx rates for a couple of years - until they didn’t.  It was rather abrupt.  This was pre-covid so 7ish years ago (?).  Then it was back to the drawing board.  I learned never to base my business on promises from the carriers.  Like most other large entities, their promises are meaningless unless you have a contract AND you’re willing to pay a lawyer to sue them to enforce said contract. Most of them won’t give you a contract that doesn’t have an expiration date more than a year or two out or a clause that allows them to alter the deal with 30 or 60 days notice or whatever. 

So anyway, when I figured out that the multi-package rates on ShipStation were really good, my first instinct was “This has got to be a fluke” and my second instinct was “How long will this last?”.  I guess I just got my answer to the 2nd question.

I received an email from drew, a escalations manager this evening,  looks like Grant was correct.   These rates are correct for right now,  apparently the previous rates were part of a discount program, I'm assuming the digital access program (API rates)   I asked what the "discount" that is showing now is based on.  It's definitely not the 80 some percent that ss is advertising.    ​@grant99 and ​@sales244  what is your plan for this moment?  Just eat this unexpected increase, pass it on to the customer, or look for a different rate consolidater/aggregater?  If the UPS API rates are indeed suspended I would assume this effects all the shipping platforms that offer deep discounts.   We sell on faire and you can ship through them, in the past they were slightly higher than the SS rates, as I suspected they were getting the API rates as well.  Today I went and looked at shipping an order though them, and it's very high as well (relatively of course), pretty much the same thing were seeing with SS rates, so it does look like it's legit.

I based my prices on the current rates anyway because I assumed those prices could go away at any time.  I’m thankful for the discount while it lasted - I saved a ton of money.  I’ll do what I can to minimize the impact - for example, consolidate into fewer packages where I would have shipped multiple packages previously - and switch to my own account whenever the rate is the same.  It usually is the same for single-package shipments.  If the rate is the same, it doesn’t make sense to use UPS by ShipStation because if I have to file a claim, I can deal with UPS directly.

Hopefully in January or February, they’ll need us again.

​@sales244 With your experience using ShipStation, do you think these discounted UPS rates could come back?

I’ve only been using ShipStation for about five months, and the discounted rates have been available the entire time until last Wednesday. It makes sense that with e-commerce and holiday shipping picking up, UPS may not need to offer as aggressive of discounts right now.

We have a rep with UPS, and their direct rates are currently better than ShipStation’s - about $10-$15 less per zone, so we’ll probably switch over for now (but still nowhere near the original discount). Hopefully ShipStation brings these discounts back in the new year. 

​@grant99 I can’t say for sure.  They could, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.  If you can get better rates directly, use those.  You must be doing a lot more volume with UPS than I am because I can’t even get a rep.  They pawned me off on the preferred team.  Probably 90% of my volume is USPS.  UPS simply doesn’t want that volume (under 20 lbs, under 1 cubic foot) at least as far as I can tell.  If they did, they know how to reach me.

​@sales244 Yes, we do a good amount of volume with UPS. For the past 5–6 months, we’ve exclusively used UPS Ground, and our lightest package is around 37 lbs, with most shipments being several 100’s lbs.

Do you remember roughly how long those promotional discounts were active? I only started using ShipStation in May and noticed the significantly discounted UPS rates, so I assumed those were the normal rates.

Is this typically a seasonal promotion that could come back after the holiday shipping rush and higher demand dies down in the new year? Like when did you find out about the discounts ​@sales244