US postage costs

[Chris 16409]

I feel your pain. Shipping to Hawaii using anything but USPS flat rate is outrageous. I wanted to order several small parts from DMC Texas, probably a large envelope worth and because they only ship UPS the ground rate for the $53 worth of parts would be $37! Why can't the shipping department also ship USPS, they provide the box and also pickup.

All you have to do is phone in your order and ask them to ship USPS. They can mail it first class mail if the parts are light enough. The website generates shipping charges automatically and generally doesn't make sense for small less expensive items.

[Nicholas R]

There are also major differences when you hit different weight thresholds. I believe 4lbs is one of the big ones. When I was living in China, a care package of one size that weighed 3lbs 15oz would cost about $16 to ship to me, where the same box weighing 4lbs 1oz cost roughly 60$ to ship to me. We learned pretty quickly that it was far cheaper to split up packages to ensure no package broke the 4lb limit.

[Bitsyncmaster]

For you guys over the boarder, shipping USPS first class mail to the lower 48 states cost me $2.65 for an RPM relay. Shipping that same package over the boarder cost me $9 to $13 first class mail. We are limited on package weight first class mail in the US to 13 oz. The weight limit goes up to 3 lbs for first class mail over the boarder (for some reason).

Priority mail over the boarder cost about 2 to 3 times the cost and maybe arrives one day earlier than first class mail.

Express mail really bumps the cost but does speed up shipping.