MIMF

Anyone else feeling the price hike crunch by the US post office? When I started selling plans I could ship anywhere in the world for about $10. As the prices went up I absorbed them by taking less of a profit. This latest hike sent the price of shipping a plan to Germany from about $13 to over $21. The price of the shipping is now greater than the selling price! Domestic prices haven't gone up much, but geez!

I just noticed that the domestic priority mail envelopes went up from 5.05 to 5.75 last night.
Time to see what the overseas prices have done so that I don't get caught out.
So first class seems to be about the same at $2.38 for a one oz thick envelope via paypal's Ship it now BUT
International Priority has jumped to 38.90 and International priority express is no a whopping 57.71 for a 1 oz package. Fed Ex was charging me a mere $46.50 for an express overnight packet to Europe which is guaranteed.

Jamie,

I didn't know that you're selling plans again.
I'll have to place an order this year!

On a side note, what most businesses do (myself included) is to raise prices about 5-8% annually to account for inflation. When costs go up, most of us pass it on to the consumer/patient.

I'd recommend raising your prices, and just putting in a blurb that your costs have gone up.
If you compare yourself to Luthier's Merchantile, Stewmac, or GAL, your prices are very, very reasonable.

For the time being Paypal's Ship-it-now link charges $6.10 for a priority envelope or small box vs the USPS on-line system that charges $6.75. That's quite a discrepancy.

It seems like more and more people are selling pdf plans that can be taken to a copy center and printed out. Although not as convenient as a paper copy through the mail, it may be an option you can offer to reduce the cost to the end user.

That works well, but the PDF files are easily copied and shared.