QKO

You may or may not have noticed, but the United States Postal Service increased all of their package rates on January 27, 2013.

While the increase for domestic packages went up about 5% in most cases, there was a truly dramatic increase in International parcel rates, both in Priority Mail and International Parcel and Envelope rates.

Buyers of fabric and other goods from online stores in the USA who have those orders shipped to OUS destinations got whacked with an average 30% increase in postal rates.

For instance, the commercial rate for those of us that buy our postage online, for a priority mail Flat Rate envelope going to Australia, jumped from $16.95 to $23.95, an increase of 30%.

All other sizes and classes of International mailings went up correspondingly.

Just thought I'd post this for the benefit of those international buyers who will be wondering what the heck happened to their shipping rates.

Online shop owners aren't all of a sudden getting greedy, they're just at the mercy of the USPS.