The NEW USPS Fees going into place on April 4th 2022 - Shipstation shipping rates are wrong

[cherri]

Starting April 4th 2022, there is a New Non Standard Fee that the Post Office is putting in place.

• NEW: Starting in April 2022, there will be a new “nonstandard fee” for packages that must be sorted manually by the USPS when the dimensions of the package exceed sortation requirements. Rates will be adjusted based on box dimensions. Packages with length over 22 inches will have a $4.00 surcharge, packages with length over 30 inches will have $15.00 surcharge and packages over 2 cubic feet will have a $15.00 surcharge. This will apply to Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail and Parcel Select Ground.

This means:

Any package size that is over 22 inches will have a surcharge of $4.00.

Any package over 30 inches will have a $15.00 surcharge

Any package over 2 cubic feet will have a $15.00 surcharge

Shipstation MUST show these fees in their price calculation at the time of shipping.  

Example:  My package is 35" long, 10" high and 10" wide.  I will be charged $15.00 for the over 30" category AND I will be charged $15.00 for the over 2 cubic foot category for a total of $30.00 plus the postal rate.

ShipStation can do that calculation so my shipper knows it is not reasonable to ship that package USPS.  Without those fees showing in ShipStation the rate for that package is $18.75 - which is lower than UPS or FedEx and the shipper will send it only to have us charged $30.00 on top of that.   

Your competitor - Shippo - says they are providing those fees into the calculation once the package is measured and weighed - so that the shipper can make the right shipping decision.

When speaking with your Chat Support person Andre' today, he read it to be a charge Only if we don't enter the measurement.  I think he is confused with the other NEW Fee - called Dimensional Noncompliance Fee - which will charge you after the fact if your dimensions are wrong or missing.

This is Critical Information for the Small business shipper and the NEW Non Standard Fee needs to be displayed as part of the rate in ShipStation.

[factorypartsdir]

Well, on the positive end, it looks like fees are correctly included when buying postage. Unfortunately, they are not included when using the "Rate Browser", or when getting quotes through the API

This NEEDS to be addressed ASAP, as we cannot correctly quote shipping prior to receiving an order due to this bug

[Moderator-Davis]

Hey there @cherri,

Thank you for joining us here in the community. We are thrilled you've joined us!

I can confirm that when dimensions are entered for qualifying shipments with a ship date on or after April 3rd, the surcharges will show up in the displayed rate.

These updates were announced, and subsequently we released our blog on the 28th with this information. You can read that blog post here, for full information from our team directly about the newly implemented USPS surcharges.

If you see these rates don't show up for any reason, please reach out to our support team (support@shipstation.com) for assistance 🙂

I hope this helps! 🙂

[dwhetzel]

@Moderator-Davis 

Just had the same thing bite me. We shipped 449 orders with a length of 25" which I quoted to the client. When we created the labels the price changed by $4 on each that's a $1796 difference. I don't under stand how SS can not show the correct rate in the order before creating the label. I still use the Endicia app on my mac and it is able to show the rate correctly. I had a long support chat yesterday see the response below. 

Screen shots of issue.

Endicia rates correctly

SS rate before creating label

SS rate after creating label

Request #3135704

"Thanks for reaching out to ShipStation's Support team!

After speaking with our senior team on this these order do appear to be getting a surcharge due to the length used on the order. For example the order RateBad_1 received the following message through the API explaining this charge

<Surcharge TotalAmount=“4.00”>
<NonStandardLengthDimension1>4.00</NonStandardLengthDimension1>

These charges from USPS would only apply after the label is created per USPS. That being said, I do see how this could be a beneficial feature to be added on the platform. I would imagine that the dimensions entered should show you a warning next to the rate or some other notification that the charges will apply before finalizing the label. I'll be passing this idea along through the channels that I am connected to, at the same time, I would recommend submitting this idea to our Community Idea Forum:"