UPS Surcharges Extend Beyond Peak Season, Get New Name

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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UPS extends residential peak surcharges past their usual date in mid-January and renames them as "demand" surcharges, leaving the door open for indefinite extension.

UPS extends residential delivery surcharges beyond peak season
The carrier will not let peak-season delivery levies fall away in mid-January as it has always done.

In an unprecedented move, UPS Inc. will impose U.S. residential delivery surcharges beyond the peak delivery season instead of letting the levies fall away in mid-January.

The Atlanta-based carrier has also done away with the word “peak” in its description of surcharges and will now just call them “demand” surcharges. The carrier’s rationale is that the two words can be used interchangeably.

In a statement, UPS said the surcharges “help protect our network and ensure UPS receives appropriate compensation for additional costs to maintain our high-quality service against the backdrop of dynamic market conditions.” It posted the surcharges on its website Thursday...

...The surcharges, which take effect Jan. 15 and remain until further notice, will not be nearly as onerous as the levies applied during the traditional peak cycle, which started Oct. 30 and will end Jan. 14. For example, depending on the average weekly volumes tendered either during most of June or in September 2022, the surcharges will range from 40 cents per package for lower-volume residential shippers to 60 cents per package for the highest volume customers...

...The new UPS surcharges will be levied against shippers that tender more than 20,000 weekly residential parcels during any week after October 2021. The surcharges will apply to the carrier’s next-day air and ground residential deliveries, a category known as “all other” air residential deliveries which typically mean deliveries on the second day, and UPS’ “SurePost” service which it manages in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service.

The surcharges will apply on each product as long as the shipper exceeds the 20,000-parcel aggregate threshold.

UPS will keep surcharges on shipments that are oversized or require “additional handling,” the latter defined as shipments that aren’t compatible with its automated processing network. Those fees will also be much lower than during the traditional peak cycle, and will effectively return to pre-peak levels.


Full new UPS Demand Surcharges can be found here.

Excerpt:

UPSShipping

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar Placeholderterry5510 hours ago
Sales down 40% from last year, this is gonna be a small business killer
Avatar PlaceholderJaeLynnYesterday
I've had this happen a few times, and it confused me. One seller alleged that they had to use Amazon's services to make sure I got my item in time. I recently bought something simple, and the seller made a mistake. They'd sent me 3 different messages, one of them too early, telling me they hoped my item arrived in perfect condition. The next day, the item was marked as shipped, and I got an official Ebay shipping email. The seller was using direct messages to give me item updates. If I wanted Amazon, I'd have used them myself! lol
Avatar Placeholderlessthanthreerecords2 days ago
Happening to me too. On my active listings page (with the full list) it looks fine, but when I click on them, many have the random characters. I reported it, and that's when one glitch led to another! As I was typing the message after clicking the "?", letters were repeatedly not coming up (usually one or two at the end of a word). I was finally able to get the message entered, but how tedious!