Comment · Sun, August 31, 2025 · ND Owner
Did shipping just get even more expensive?
Original post in this thread
Chemical-Finger-6791 · 22 points
As you can see here the "Handling" adds so much extra on top of the shipping price, $56 for Fedex and $67 for DHL which is honestly nuts. It's a lot lower if I choose the much slower "Standard Worldwide Mail" shipping method and is only $2 then. I'm confused because this extra handling price didn't happen with my previous orders which I used Fedex for, did something change?
What they were answering
BorderEvery676 · 3 points
As a business myself, USPS raised their prices by 50% back in July. On average, to ship priority it’s been $10-$14 for priority depending on zones. Depending on the zone I’ve seen it as low as $8-$10 again for priority. For ground (which is terribly slow) it’s been around $4-$7. This is with pirate ships savings and I’ve seen the same for Shopify savings. I don’t know where they ship from or who they use but it feels like added a few extra dollars if this is USPS Priority.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
This guy is in Norway, so very different pricing. We don't even offer USPS first class in the US anymore. The lowest shipping we offer is FedEx 2 day. That's what our free shipping is. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on shipping.
The fee he is seeing here is an international "remote area fee" that the private carriers assess for addresses in areas they don't have a ton of packages going to. The national mail services of the countries around the world, like our USPS, subsidize all the areas outside of large cities. We just don't get to see all that, because it's paid by the government. However, private carriers actually assess that fee. It's also why defunding USPS is a really bad idea for people in rural areas. Private carriers will just stop delivering there, or charge crazy fees.