Austin, TX (1.22.19) - ShippingEasy, the leading provider of cloud-based shipping, inventory management, and customer marketing solutions for e-commerce sellers, has released its 2019 E-commerce Seller’s Guide to Shipping Rate Changes. This free guide helps online sellers prepare for and adapt to the 2019 rate changes that are being rolled out by all major carriers. The guide is now in its fourth year of publication and has helped countless online sellers navigate annual shipping rate changes.

The ShippingEasy Rate Change Guide provides:

• A Summary of the Rate Changes: A one-page, side-by-side comparison of each carrier’s changes, highlighting the most relevant takeaways related to each, and providing links to more detailed information on the carriers’ sites.

• Tools for Determining the Most Cost-Effective Carrier for a Given Set of Shipping Parameters: The Guide is the only publication available that provides easy-to-use comparison tables which allow shippers to quickly determine which carrier provides the best pricing for a package based on weight, destination zone, and service level. It also points out where there may be alternative cost-saving services to consider (e.g. USPS First Class Package Service®, USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate® or USPS Priority Mail Regional Rate® boxes).

• Examples of How the Changes Impact Real-World E-commerce Businesses: The guide features case studies from online businesses in five different product categories, drawn from ShippingEasy’s proprietary (and anonymous) shipping data. These examples not only show the impact of rising rates but also highlight (where possible) opportunities to save by considering alternative services and/or carriers.

• A New Tutorial Section on Dimensional Pricing: This pricing model—which calculates shipping costs based on a package’s dimensions rather than weight for some large, light packages—is more important to understand because USPS is moving to stricter dimensional pricing rules. This may have a significant impact on the rates paid by some sellers. The new section clearly explains how each carrier calculates dimensional pricing and provides examples using real products to show how it works.

This year’s guide is especially relevant given the scale of the changes being implemented by the three major carriers. In addition to the 4.9% average rate increases which are becoming standard for UPS and FedEx, USPS has made unusually significant changes this year. For example, for 2019 USPS will apply zone-based pricing to First Class Package Service®. This new structure increases FCPS rates an average of 12%. The aforementioned stricter dimensional pricing rules, which include a lower divisor, will raise the dimensional weight of all packages subject to dimensional pricing.

“Despite the unusual significance of this year’s changes—especially from USPS—we are still seeing opportunities to ship smarter to minimize the impact of price increases,” said Chris Vaughn, VP Marketing, ShippingEasy. “The Guide provides intuitive, side-by-side comparisons of the new rates, and helps point out how price increases can be mitigated by looking at alternative services. As in years past, when we look at real shipping data, we find opportunities to lower shipping costs despite the increased rates and pass these lessons on to e-commerce sellers.”

To better comprehend how the 2019 rate changes will influence shipping operations, and to determine the best shipping solutions for your e-commerce business, download ShippingEasy’s free 2019 E-commerce Seller’s Guide to Shipping Rate Changes.

About ShippingEasy
ShippingEasy is the easiest cloud-based shipping platform on the market. With ShippingEasy, online merchants of all sizes can ship fast, with the best rates, and grow orders. Our powerful integrations with leading online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and many others, allow customers to manage orders, automate shipping, track shipments, and notify recipients — in one easy-to-use platform. Complete with email marketing, customer and inventory management features, along with our industry-leading phone, chat, and email support —tens of thousands of online merchants use our award-winning software to ship fast, cheap, and to grow their businesses. ShippingEasy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP). For more information, visit ShippingEasy.com.