Package Shipping Fee Increases: How to Cope with Surcharges
January roundup: automation, manufacturing activity
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Supply Chain Dive: FedEx, UPS’ 2025 fee hikes will wallop bulky package shippers
This article spells it out bluntly: “It’s a tough time to be a heavy package shipper.”
It will be costlier to ship heavy things in 2025 according to Supply Chain Dive. FedEx and UPS are have implemented significant bulky package surcharge increases.
These changes primarily affect shipments of large or heavy items that require additional handling. Examples include furniture such as chairs, tables, sofas, and desks, as well as appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, and ovens. Also, sports equipment and building materials will be affected.
Key takeaways:
- Substantial Surcharge Increases: Both carriers have doubled delivery surcharges for large or oversized packages over the past five years, with upcoming rate hikes continuing this trend.
- UPS’s new surcharges took effect on December 23, 2024, while FedEx’s increases hit on January 6, 2025.
- In October, UPS introduced a minimum billable weight of 40 pounds for packages requiring additional handling due to their dimensions, affecting shippers of large but lightweight items. As of the article’s publication, FedEx had not announced a similar minimum billable weight change.
Mitigating the issue
Experts suggest that shippers can reduce costs by optimizing packaging to decrease size and weight, considering alternative transportation modes like less-than-truckload shipping, and evaluating the use of more economical shipping services for certain deliveries. Smart material handling and packaging strategies such as using precision case erectors to right-size packages and minimize dimensional fees.
See more
- How to Make Packing More Efficient
- Conveying and Sorting Large, Heavy Loads
- All Squared Away: Carton Quality
Autonomous mowers: are they coming for landscaping jobs?
John Deere’s rolled out a new robot lawnmower for commercial-grade landscaping at CES 2025, marking a shift in landscaping, similar to the way automation affects warehouses and factories according to TechCrunch.
- Automation improved efficiency and reduced costs in industrial operations, and autonomous lawn mowers are being developed to streamline landscaping.
- Like technologies in supply chain automation, autonomous mowers promise precision and reliability while raising questions about the future of jobs in manual labor industries.
- In the warehouse sector, where the hardest to staff, lowest value-add tasks were targeted first. Commercial mowers are targeting the same types of functions in the landscaping world.
- Autonomous mowers are one possible answer to the staffing challenges faced by landscaping companies as the labor market continues to contract, similar to warehousing’s labor challenges.
The parallels between landscaping and warehousing are hard to ignore: both struggle to staff, and both are searching for ways to squeeze efficiency from a labor-intensive process.
Manufacturing economic sector declines in December
Manufacturing economic activity continued to decline in December after nine months of contraction, according to supply chain executives in latest Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.
- The New Orders Index rose to 52.5%, indicating growth for the second consecutive month after seven months of contraction.
- Meanwhile, the Production Index increased to 50.3%, returning to expansion after six months of contraction.
- The Employment Index fell to 45.3%, signaling faster contraction and ongoing labor challenges in the sector.
- Prices continue to rise, with the Prices Index climbing to 52.5%, reflecting faster increases in input costs for manufacturers.
- The Supplier Deliveries Index edged up to 50.1%, indicating marginally slower deliveries, a shift from faster deliveries in the previous month.
These metrics suggest a complex environment for American manufacturing, with pockets of growth in new orders and production, but persistent challenges in employment and input costs. You can download the full report (PDF) here.
Quick hits
- Mallard Manufacturing goes in depth on Gravity Flow Rack Solutions: Integrating AGVs and Robotics for Peak Performance. This article covers the way these automated solutions can be efficiently integrated with storage
- In Thinking about autonomous mobile robots for your plant? Common objections answered, The Manufacturer covers many of the common issues with AGVs and some answers to those questions.
- Capital investment into China continues to shrink, according to Voroni, in Foreign Investment in China Sinks to Multi-Year Lows. Investments are fleeing the country, particularly in manufacturing and durable goods.
Tags: Automation, shipping, labor
Scott Stone is Cisco-Eagle's Vice President of Marketing with 35 years of experience in material handling, warehousing and industrial operations. His work is published in multiple industry journals an websites on a variety of warehousing topics. He writes about automation, warehousing, safety, manufacturing and other areas of concern for industrial operations and those who operate them.