The USPS international shipping rate change and how it affects direct sales

Hold on to your horses:

http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22352/html/kit.htm

Quoting Tim Adams of Ajax/3 Drops of Sweat by way of Marc Masters on FB:

"international shipping rates (including Canada) go up effective Monday, and the increases are absolutely brutal. To ship a CD to Canada goes from about $2.50 to $8.75 or so. An LP to Europe is almost $20. Increases range from 40-100%."

It really suck how much the republicans have sabotaged the usps

I don't know why we continue to view this as a ”business” that needs to make money as opposed to necessary infrastructure for a first world, business friendly country

Add this to the list of reasons I will never in the foreseeable future vote for anyone with an (R) next to their name.

It used to cost a little under $5 to ship a tape to Europe. Today I sent one to Canada that cost $7.35 and one to the UK that cost $9.45!

well this sucks

Holy shit, really?

man this is awful

Shipping the other way is brutal too. This is a little more in line with that. When I buy an album from a seller in the UK or Sweden, I pay 10-20 bucks for shipping.

I love it when the "pro-business" Republicans pull such blatant business killing shit as this.

Can you still do Media Mail?

i charge 15 bucks to ship an album worldwide and nobody cares what i charge cuz the u.s. dollar is so weak compared to eurobucks.

Surface MediaMail went years ago. You can still do airfreight media mail but it is no competitive vs a flat rate priority mail box.

The sorts of companies that fund the republicans get bulk deals with UPS and fedex and would rather see the USPS shrivel and die.

xpost

i mean you can probably save money if you are in the u.k. or whatever and you buy a record from me and not some guy in uhhh austria or whatever. does that make sense?

aw fuck i just took orders on my next zine but havent sent them out yet :-[

Mr. Ed,

Media mail is by the pound and is still viable with heavy items (large books especially).
1st Class is by the ounce (good for CDs and mags).

(Those two options of course are domestic USA only and the least of what is being fretted about here)

Yeah, there's no intl media mail. Domestic shipping for a tape (comparable weight to a CD) went from 1.95 to 2.07 so not a huge deal.

media mostly useful for heavy ass books

Damn I knew I should have hustled on this pile of orders over the weekend. That mistake probably just cost me $100 :(

buying shit direct from the States tends to be more than I'm willing to pay for a record as it is - I assume that this is going to add maybe £2 or £3 to the price of a lot of LPs which get shipped to distros here (UK) for example. on the whole those guys keep their prices v pointedly cheap because of ~DIY values~ but I guess it'll be more in line with what LPs cost in actual record shops now? idk

http://stereogum.com/1247822/deconstructing-how-the-usps-is-killing-indie/top-stories/lead-story/

IRL CONSEQUENCES

Does this mean it would make more sense for US indie labels to license their product to a Euro peer, and vice versa?

An online petition urging Congress to repeal the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2013 blames Congress for the USPS’s current economic struggles, reasonably pointing out the unfairness of asking the USPS to fund seven decades of benefits, while no other government agency or private company faces such an unachievable task. At the time of this writing, the petition still required more than 23,000 signatures of its goal of 25,000 by February 4th.

http://stereogum.com/1247822/deconstructing-how-the-usps-is-killing-indie/top-stories/lead-story/

― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Wednesday, January 30, 2013 1:33 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

written by permabanned ilxor roger adultery http://www.theantiemoempire.com/logos/rip.gif

what? why did roger get permabanned?

wasn't he a libertarian??

yeah and i have some memory of a racist-y post or two but that could be wrong

libertarian gun dude who liked to "just ask questions" regarding race stuff. I have heard tell he's a solid dude IRL but his latter board presence was ugh

that's funny, when I saw the byline I thought roger adultery but then when I read the article I thought maybe I was confused because his defense of the USPS sure isn't very libertarian.

this is the rog I remember: Have YOU heard about this horrible incident? Probably not...

M@tt, see here:

BAN MANALISHI

lol at you thinking hes not still posting here. and he is a solid dude.

shhh!

posting in heaven with cankles and LJ

Does this mean it would make more sense for US indie labels to license their product to a Euro peer, and vice versa?

in theory it always did I guess? and will do so more now but you can't just wave a wand and make it happen

From what I gather, there are indeed people on this side of the pond who would be more than willing to set up distros or licence stuff to their own small labels. It's just a matter of connecting the dots, I suppose.

I'm not baiting anyone. I'm answering questions.
― Manalishi