The seeds of inspiration for this post took root back at the end of January 2013 when the United States Postal System decided that they were going to massively up their rates. Quite literally overnight, I saw the shipping rates listed on some of my favourite sites like etsy and eBay double. I was floored, as I'm sure many others outside of America were as well. Those within the US were also hit with a noticeable hike in national shipping rates, but they weren't quite as severe as the huge increase that those outside of the US were left to deal with.
I thought about writing a post about this topic right in the moment, but decided instead that I'd let a few months pass - during which time I'd experience life with these new (super high!) USPS postal rates before I set my thoughts on this subject down on virtual paper. Now, a little over a full year on, my feelings about the situation haven't changed one iota, so it seems like high time I spoke some of them aloud.
To begin with, I should point out that I fully understand that postal systems have to raise their rates for various reasons (inflation, declining numbers of users, increase in production costs, etc). Canada Post - the postal system of my own lovely nation - has been raising there every year like clockwork for the past few years (with 2014's hikes being the most substantial ever), and I suspect they're continue to do annually (or very nearly annually) for the rest of time. No one likes to have to suddenly pay more for a basic everyday type of service, but I can roll with relatively minor rate hikes as well as the next person.
By the same token, I'm well aware of the fact that the USPS is drastically losing money these days. How much money, you may ask? A staggering 25 million dollars a day, according to this article from NBC News. In their last fiscal year the United States postal system lost a truly mind-blowing sixteen billion dollars. Not million, billion. I'm sympathetic to their situation, I truly am, and (again) I'm fine with slight increased in prices, but I think its flat out highway robbery to suddenly charge two to three hundred percent more to send some types of parcels outside of the US.
Like many of us, I have a very set budget to work within when it comes to my spending. Prior to this year, I already felt like shipping charges ate up a rather chunky percentage of that budget (I'd say anywhere from 10% to 25% off my total online shopping budget in an average month went towards shipping, as I buy the fast majority of my purchases from the US), but could usually try and keep things to at least a certain level that I was comfortable with by seeking out sellers who offered First Class shipping to Canada (which was generally quite affordable).
First Class shipping is still available, however the rates have gone through the roof. A small vintage hat, for example, that might have cost me $5 to $8 (at most) to ship to Canada up until January 2013, is now generally running in the range of $10 to $18 to ship (this is the true shipping costs, I'm not factoring any additional handling and/or packaging charges that a seller might tag onto the overall shipping price of an item). Small items, which have always been favourites of mine, like vintage brooches and bangles, that once cost $2 to $5 to send, again are costing double or more, with about $6 to $11 being the norm now.
If I'm buying an investment piece - for example a vintage brooch that costs $40 or $50, I don't mind paying steep shipping fees quite as much (for example, $8 to send a single wee little brooch via First Class mail to Canada), but there's no way on earth I'm going to pay that for an inexpensive brooch that only ran me somewhere in the range of $5 to $15 to begin with, which is the price range I generally shop within for my brooches. For every category of item - vintage, craft related, or otherwise that I purchase, this same principle rings true.
Just buy locally or at least nationally if you don't like what USPS is charging, I hear you say, and that's certainly a very valid point, however doing so is a whole lot easier said that done. For example, there are exceedingly few vintage shops anywhere even remotely close to where I live and those that do exist tend to focus on housewares (which I love, don’t get me wrong, but you can't exactly wear a vintage serving platter, now can you!), and as traveling even relatively short distances is very difficult for me due to my health, making vintage shopping trips to cities like Vancouver (which is about five hours away from us) is not something that is going to happen on any kind of even remotely frequent basis.
There are some Canadian vintage sellers on eBay, etsy and others who have their own independent sites, but there’s not too many (let alone ones with pre-1960s offerings), let me tell you. As well, one needs to keep in mind the fact that Canada Post's national shipping rates are crazy high as well (they have been for years).
Oftentimes as well Canadian sellers charge more their goods than their US counterparts, which doesn't help matter much. I love supporting my fellow Canucks and do buy from Canadian sellers sometimes, but for the sake of my budget, up until this past January, I bought most of my vintage items from the States (and to a much, much smaller extent from other international locations such as the UK).
Since these USPS rate increase went into place (I should note that while the rates on certain shipping methods, such as Flat Rate and Priority Mail to Canada certainly increased, they didn't quite double; nevertheless however, they all increased by at least several dollars, and were not all that cheap to begin with), I have really had to revamp the way I shop online (as I'd venture to say I'm sure many others have in recent weeks as well).
For example, buying small inexpensive items from the States has just about become a thing of the past. I now try to bundle multiple items from the same seller, if possible, so that I feel like I'm getting more bang for my shipping money buck (this was something I'd already been doing, but I've stepped it up big time these days), and I'm buying more investment pieces (which if we’re looking for a silver lining, is a good thing in its own right, especially since doing so is something I was aiming for last year, as discussed in this post, and beyond).
More than what I am buying however, it's what I'm not purchasing that I'm perhaps feeling the most. Gone, for the most part, are small items, inexpensive garments (it seems nuts to me to pay $15 in shipping, for example, on a cardigan that cost me the same amount, unless that sweater was such an incredible bargain that even factoring in the shipping price, it would still be a steal of a deal for a combined price of $30), and many bulky items (for example hats and purses). I'm not saying that I'll never buy these items online again, just that I've very much had to slash the number of such pieces I've purchased lately.
I'm incredibly grateful that I filled a lot of the gaps in my vintage wardrobe in 2012, because this drastic increase in shipping prices would have made doing so this year (at least to the same extent) nothing more than a pipe dream.
I know that my vintage wardrobe will be impacted in the long run by these sharp rate hikes because I'll have cut back on the number and, sometimes, types of garments and accessories I buy online. If there was lots of good, relatively affordable vintage shopping locally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but as there truly isn't, I'm really not sure just yet how much of a far reaching impact this whole situation will have on my wardrobe in the months and years to come.
{Since USPS raised their international shipping rates last year, I've been seeing a lot less of our local mailman, and I suspect that such will continue to be the case in the years to come as well. Image source.}
One thing I think it will mean is that I'll buy more reproduction from larger sites, who sometimes offer decent shipping rates due to the fact that they send out large volumes of parcels and/or use courier services. I've found myself window shopping in the UK a lot more over the past few months well. I love supporting independent vintage sellers online and it truly pains me that I won't be giving as much of my hard earned money to them any more solely because of USPS's postal rate increases.
Unless shipping rates doubled again beyond their current prices, I will likely always continue to shop from the US, however the way I shop and the total number of purchases I make have changed and I don't foresee these things being able to revert (let's face, postal rates are incredibly unlikely to drop again).
Far beyond the impact that these rate changes have had on my life and shopping habits, I suspect that many independent sellers and even some larger US based businesses alike are feeling the impact of fewer sales, especially from their international shoppers. The effects of USPS's decision not only effect me, they effect every last person who uses the United States postal system in any capacity, and in this day and age, that includes a huge percentage of small and on-the-side business owners.
I've already noticed that fewer sellers on sites like eBay and etsy are offering shipping to Canada any more. They too are well aware of these rates increases and know that some of their potential customers cannot, or will not, pay what USPS is asking, so they've pulled out of the international shipping game all together (thus decreasing the overall pool of online sources those like myself outside of the US have to shop from).
For Canadians who live close to the US border, getting an American address (from a service such as Cross Border Shopper) or having their online purchases shipped to a friend or relatives in the States and then going across the border to pick up their purchases in person, may be an option for some, but for most (and certainly for those outside of North America), this is not feasible in the slightest.
When all is said and done, it boils down to this: USPS jacked up their rates and just about no one but them stands to gain anything from this action. International shoppers like me will be left with the hard decision of whether to forgo or decrease their US shopping or pay sky-high shipping rates, and many online sellers will likely see their revenue effected due to a decrease in sales.
The sad reality is that no one wins here at all, and that's a fact worth writing home about. Assuming, of course, one can still afford the price of a postage stamp.