Holiday Shipping Surcharges

Posted by

It’s that time of the year again for holiday shopping! I do a lot of shopping year-round on auction websites. One of the things I like to do is add items to my favorites or watchlist. Some websites let you enter a note on the item on your watchlist. I usually put the estimated shipping cost in the note, so that I have a better idea of the full cost of the item. Black Friday on the shopgoodwill.com website, I was surprised to find that the shipping fee for the items on my favorites list had drastically increased. Some shipping fees had gone from $20 to $30 overnight. As I looked at other items on the website, I found that every item had an increased shipping fee.

Goodwill uses FedEx to ship all of their items. So, they obviously have an exclusive contract with FedEx. I checked the FedEx website and found that they and other shipping companies are applying a surcharge during the holiday shopping season. Between Nov. 25–Dec. 29, 2024, you can expect to pay an extra $7.10 surcharge, depending on the week. Since last week had a holiday (Thanksgiving) the surcharge was at its highest. This means that the shipping fee can change from day to day. Just hope that your auction doesn’t end on a peak surcharge day. The other thing I don’t like about shopping on the Goodwill auction website is that each store location has a different handling fee. This fee can range from $0 to $5 and is added to each transaction. There are very few locations with a zero-dollar handling fee. The average for most locations is $3.

FedEx isn’t the only shipping company with a holiday surcharge. Most of the other carriers have one as well. You definitely don’t want to take your package in and pay the retail fee. It is best to go online to purchase and print the shipping label yourself. The website I use is paypal.shipstation.com. These shipping websites often have discounted rates for most carriers. I can charge the shipping to my PayPal account and print the label myself. I then drop the package off at the nearest post office, UPS or FedEx store depending on which carrier had the best rate. With websites like Amazon, Walmart, Target shipping is still free if you spend a certain amount or have a subscription. But on their websites, prices can change daily and if you shop elsewhere, beware of those nasty holiday shipping surcharges.

Leave a Reply