Shipping costs- WTF

Just read the overseas shipping via FedEx “secret” about their GREAT RATES option and telephone number to call. I’ve probably used the GREAT RATES option to ship a dozen or so times. And each time it saved me over 60, sometimes 70 percent off the shipment price. 
 

I’ve never seen the GREAT RATES number advertised. But I found out about it many years ago when I had to ship an expensive jazz archtop guitar overseas. From Seattle it arrived in Australia in less than two days. My thoughts were, I’m happy I was born when the world was so interconnected. 

As others have hinted, volume is emerging as being at least as important as weight when computing shipping costs. UPS, USPS, and FedEx all went to volumentric pricing about five years ago.

One more recent development is the USPS’s "Cubic" pricing for parcels under 0.5 cubic feet. This pricing scheme is sort of flat-rate pricing for non-standard-size parcels. Pricing is determined by the dimensions and volume of a parcel, regardless of weight. This won’t help with the OP’s specific issue, but it’s good to keep in mind when shipping smaller but heavier chunks of metal.

In my experience, I’ve found this new pricing tier to be about 10-15% lower than Priority Mail -- which in turn is usually much lower than (sometimes even half that of) equivalent FedEx or UPS 2/3 day services.

But then there’s insurance...

@cundare2    The problem with your analogy is that FEDEX/UPS 2-3 Day services actually get where they are suppose to go in that time frame.  USPS (Where I retired from) has a HORRIFIC track record for Priority Mail packages actually getting to their destination in that time frame.  You get what you pay for.

You think it’s bad NOW? Wait to till they privatize the USPS and introduce the profit motive into THAT operation! lmfao

Yeah even a freaking cd costs 5 bucks to ship it....so now i will  only buy locally...no more shipping cost...