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USPS rates rise in eBay Labels as Amazon peak fees kick in

21 September 2026

USPS rates rise in eBay Labels as Amazon peak fees kick in

Two things landed this week and both hit the same line of your P&L. USPS rates moved inside eBay Labels on 19 September with roughly a day's warning, and Amazon's October cost stack is now fixed: triple storage from the 1st, a 48-hour Prime event on the 6th and 7th, and a peak fulfilment surcharge from the 15th. If you sell on both channels, your Q4 cost base changed before your Q4 plan was finished.

USPS rates went up inside eBay Labels with 24 hours' notice

USPS rates went up inside eBay Labels with 24 hours' notice

eBay told sellers on 18 September that USPS was adjusting rates on selected Ground Advantage and Priority Mail shipments from 19 September. Reported increases include about $0.10 on 0-2lb Ground Advantage parcels across Zones 1-8, with larger rises on heavier parcels. Rural ZIP codes are excluded, and eBay's shipping calculator updated automatically when the new rates took effect.

Calculated shipping passes the rise to the buyer. Everything else does not. Free postage, flat rates and any handling fee you set weeks ago were priced against the old table, so from Saturday that increase comes out of your margin on every one of those orders. Ten cents is nothing on one parcel and real money on 2,000 in December.

The awkward part is that it is invisible in a sales report. Label costs sit on a different line from order revenue, so nothing looks wrong until you net postage off order value per SKU and see which lines have quietly gone flat, which is exactly what /profitability is built to catch.

What to do: take your five highest-volume eBay SKUs, compare the label you actually paid last week against the postage you charged, and move any free-postage threshold or flat rate where that gap has closed to zero. Do it before peak volume multiplies the error.

Amazon's October cost stack is now confirmed end to end

Amazon's October cost stack is now confirmed end to end

Prime Big Deal Days runs 6-7 October, 48 hours from 12:01am PDT across 22 countries. Before that, US monthly FBA storage for standard-size non-dangerous goods moves from about $0.78 to about $2.40 per cubic foot on 1 October, and oversize from about $0.56 to $1.40. The holiday peak fulfilment surcharge, averaging around $0.32 per unit, then runs 15 October to 14 January.

Those three dates work on each other. Whatever sits in the network on 1 October starts paying roughly triple rent for the rest of the year. The event on 6-7 October pulls your fast lines out quickly and leaves the slow ones behind, paying that higher rate. Then the per-unit surcharge starts on 15 October, right when you are restocking for Christmas.

So a deal price built on September economics is wrong twice over: it misses about 32 cents a unit in fulfilment and understates what the unsold remainder costs to store until January. Deciding what to send in, what to discount and what to pull is a stock-cover question first, which is the sort of call /inventory exists to make.

What to do: run cover days on your FBA lines this week and sort them into three piles, sell through before 1 October, keep, or remove. Then rebuild your Prime Big Deal Days prices with the surcharge and the new storage rate already inside the unit cost, not added on afterwards.

Quick hits

  • Amazon: from 2 November, $1m commercial liability cover is required in enhanced safety categories at any sales level, not just above $10,000 a month - a few slow children's or supplement lines now carry the same insurance cost as a big seller.
  • eBay: airbags, inflators and steering wheel airbag covers are banned across the whole category from 24 September - pull those listings this week or face removals that count against your account.
  • eBay: MyFitment access through Amazon and other third-party tools ends 30 September as Fitment Plus Auto goes in-platform - move compatibility workflows inside eBay or listings could lose their fitment data.
  • Multi-channel: ChannelX reports Royal Mail scan delays pushing UK accounts towards losing Top Rated status, where the limit is 3% late deliveries over three months - the carrier's missed scan counts against your metrics, not theirs.
  • Multi-channel: eCommerce Expo is at ExCeL London on 24 September, with a Connected Commerce Stage session at 13:50 moderated by ChannelX - free to attend and a last chance to press logistics providers before Q4 locks in.

On your radar next week

  • 24 September: eBay's airbag ban takes effect and eCommerce Expo opens at ExCeL London.
  • 30 September: third-party MyFitment access ends.
  • 1 October: FBA monthly storage roughly triples for the Q4 period.
  • 6-7 October: Prime Big Deal Days, 48 hours across 22 countries.
  • 15 October: Amazon's peak fulfilment surcharge starts, running to 14 January.
  • 2 November: Amazon insurance requirement applies at any sales level.

Sources

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