UPS Really Doesn't Want to Ship Your Refrigerator With Your Socks

By Paul Ziobro

United Parcel Service Inc. jacked up fees by 30% to $650 for the largest items it delivers to discourage shippers from putting kayaks, refrigerators and other oversize items into a network meant for smaller parcels.

The higher fee on "over maximum limit," or overmax, items is currently $500 and will jump on June 4. "The charge is intended to encourage shippers to use the UPS Freight network for these large items," UPS spokesman Glenn Zaccara said.

UPS's parcel network is primarily built for small and medium-size packages, which can zip through some automated sortation hubs at the rate of 416,000 an hour. Some large and irregular-size packages need extra handling and routing to bypass conveyor belts built for the smaller items, adding costs.

Packages that are longer than 96 inches on any side, or whose longest side plus girth -- calculated as twice the width plus twice the height -- exceeds 130 inches, already incur a surcharge of $80, according to UPS rate guidelines.

The overmax items are those that UPS doesn't want in that network. Instead, it wants to move them on tractor-trailers.

The overmax fee will hit any packages that either weigh more than 150 pounds, are more than 108 inches long, or total at least 165 inches in length plus girth. Such items technically aren't accepted into UPS's parcel network, but if they arrive at a sortation hub or otherwise make it into the system, UPS will apply the fee due to the extra work needed to process the item.

The fee also would apply to pallets of goods that exceed maximum size or weight restrictions. Those require prior approval before UPS handles them and are subject to the higher fees.

Mr. Zaccara declined to say how often UPS applies such fees. In the past, UPS has said that it only applies to a small sliver of shipments since most overmax packages already go through the freight network.

Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix Inc., a software provider that analyzes shipping data, estimates that just 0.03% of UPS packages would have been subject to an overmax fee in 2017. While a small percentage, that is still over a million packages that could have been hit by the fee.

UPS also is adding a fee if audits uncover that a shipper underpaid to ship a package. Such differences can be found when an item is weighed or measured during the journey through UPS's network. The audit fee will be assessed if the average shipping charge correction is more than $5 in a given week, and will amount to either $1 per package or 6% of the total amount of shipping charge corrections during the period.

Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 23, 2018 17:04 ET (21:04 GMT)

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