Shipping is going up in 2015 and not by a little. There's always an annual increase from the carriers but both FedEx and UPS have made a major change to the way it will be calculated.
We have all known package shipping to be a charge for the weight of the package being shipped. If a box weighed one pound it was charged at a one pound rate. If it weight 10 pounds it was charged a 10 pound rate. The formula is pretty simple and made it possible for both sellers and consumers to determine shipping in advance.
This year there is a new formula that is called DIM weight, which is short for dimension weight. In a nutshell, DIM weight will charge the higher of the DIM weight formula or the actual package weight. What this means is that package weights will not necessarily be determined by the weight of the contents but will also include the size of the package.
The formula for DIM weight is (LxWxH)/166. To give you an example, 6x6x6 is 216 and that is divided by 166 to give a result of 1.30, which would round to 2. To put this another way, a 6" cube, which is not a very large package, has a minimum weight charge of 2 pounds. If the contents weight 15oz it will be rounded to 2 pounds but If the content weight is 3 pounds it would be charged at a 3 pound rate.
To help you understand why this is a major change we'll give you an example of one of our favorite box sizes: 6x9x12, which is a minimum weight of 4 pounds, regardless of the actual contents. This is calculated by: 6x9x12=648 and that becomes 648/166=3.9, which rounds to 4 pounds. Six 2x2x9 chipboard storage boxes might weigh about 2 pounds but they will have to ship at the 4 pound rate.
What this means for you as a consumer is that shipping rates are going up. Businesses are now having to guess at the cost of this change and those costs will be passed on in the form of higher prices and higher shipping rates. It will be universal.
Coin Supply Express is committed to remaining the most competitive supplier of coin collecting supplies. We regret that we are increasing our shipping charges for 2015 but we are confident that we will continue to lead the way when it comes to the final delivered price of coin collecting supplies.