Alas, it has caught up to them, and the costs are being passed on to all of us. On January 27, 2013, USPS is raising their shipping prices. Domestic (within the US), the rates aren't increasing too much, so we are keeping the Flat Rate Shipping Program active for the US. But the International Rates will be seeing some serious jumps.
Seeing as many of you shop with us on Etsy, we pulled this photo from one of their recent blog posts. It really demonstrates the drastic differences in some of the most commonly shipped international packages. (first column is 2012's prices, the second column is 2013's prices)
We are going to be starting out our smallest & lightest products out at $8.00 for shipping & handling (this includes the postage, shipping materials & insurance), and go up from there based on weights. We aren't too concerned about our website orders. The shopping cart is linked with USPS and uses their calculator to calculate the rates based on the information we plug in for the products. And we've found it to be insanely accurate.
Etsy is where we may have to play with the rates a little until we get them right. We have set our "ship with" rates as low as we think we can, and will adjust them if we find we are underestimating.
Our biggest regret with this latest change is that we unfortunately need to end the Canadian Flat Rate Shipping Program. Our shipping rates to Canada had always been so comparable to US rates. They are now right up there with the rest of the International Rates. So we will be discontinuing that program with this new change.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them. Thanks again!
Lindsay
