PRC Approves Temporary Price Increases for Competitive Products
On August 14, 2020, the United States Postal Service® (USPS®) filed a proposal with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to temporarily increase prices for domestic competitive products. On September 4, 2020, the PRC approved these price adjustments. The changed pricing takes effect October 18, 2020, and will roll back to current pricing levels on December 27, 2020.
Basis for the changes
The USPS issued the information below in the form of an Industry Alert on August 14, 2020 to describe the basis for the proposal to change prices:
The planned temporary price adjustments are in response to increased expenses and heightened demand for online shopping package volume due to the coronavirus pandemic and expected holiday ecommerce. As a result of these changing market conditions, the Postal Service is planning a time-limited price increase on all commercial domestic competitive package volume from Oct. 18 until Dec. 27, 2020. Retail prices and international products will be unaffected.
The planned price increase would go into effect at 12:00AM Central on Oct.18, 2020 and remain in place until 12:00AM Central Dec. 27, 2020.
The planned prices, approved by the Governors of the Postal Service on August 6, would raise prices on its commercial domestic competitive parcels – Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, First-Class Package Service, Parcel Select, and Parcel Return Service.
This time-limited adjustment will increase prices for commercial customers in line with competitive practices without impacting customers at the retail level. In doing this, the Postal Service is protecting the retail consumer during a vulnerable economic period while increasing prices on commercial volume during heightened volume levels.
No structural changes are planned as part of this limited time pricing initiative, allowing customers the greatest ease in implementing the new prices with minimal complexity.
The Governors believe these temporary rates will keep the Postal Service competitive while providing the agency with much needed revenue. The forecasted additional revenue from the time-limited increase will depend on the volume of packages shipped between Oct. 18 and Dec. 27 at commercial rates.
The price changes
The chart below shows the average price changes for the domestic competitive products covered under this PRC approval.
Resources
The order on the pricing changes can be accessed on the PRC web site. Window Book software solutions are being updated to support these pricing changes.