How To Choose Between USPS, FedEx and UPS

You’ve made a sale, congrats! It’s time to ship some goods. How do you decide what carrier to use? There are a lot of different factors, but the two biggest considerations are transit time and shipping cost.

Transit Time

First, consider when your order needs to arrive. For many shippers, a specific day isn’t critical and a range is fine. On many sites at checkout you’ll see an economy shipping option which lists a range like “2-7 days”. Carriers like USPS generally don’t guarantee delivery by a certain day, so it’s important to set your customer’s expectations with a range to avoid disappointment and unnecessary customer support calls (“ The site said 2 days and it’s been 3, where’s my stuff?”). The most common shipping method from FedEx and UPS is regular ground shipping. Though it’s not guaranteed, they average 99% on time delivery (you’ll find various numbers online, but that’s the percentage we’ve seen for our shipments). For abc Window Cleaning Supply and many other ecommerce stores, that’s good enough to list a specific arrival date (though we’d still recommend some disclaimer language in your terms & conditions and a possible note to your customers about the possibility of COVID delays). You can see transit times for UPS here and FedEx here based on your zip code.

FedEx and UPS also have slower shipping methods available that are less expensive and compete better on price with USPS Priority Mail. FedEx Smart Post and UPS SurePost are both economy shipping methods where the carrier picks up the delivery and sometimes hands it off to USPS for last mile delivery and sometimes handles the delivery directly. We’ll go into more detail on these services elsewhere, but know that the transit time for these services are a range which can vary widely, just like USPS.

For true guaranteed transit time, select an expedited shipping method from FedEx or UPS like Next Day Air or 2 Day Air. These similarly have a very high on time delivery rate (99% or more in normal non-COVID times) and carry the guarantee that you’ll get a refund on the shipping cost if they miss the delivery window.

We haven’t been able to find any hard numbers on reliability of the three carriers in terms of lost packages and damage. However, in our experience UPS and FedEx are more reliable than USPS and offer more detailed tracking. Fortunately, though, issues are rare for all three.

Shipping Cost

For most shippers, once you’ve selected the shipping options that will get your package delivered when you need it, the most important consideration is shipping cost. With Amazon shipping virtually anything for free, Etsy promoting stores offering free shipping, and many other e-commerce stores shipping things cheaply or entirely for free, it’s critical to get shipping costs as inexpensive as possible. If you are going to ship with FedEx or UPS, be sure to set up an account. As your shipping volume grows, you’ll get significant discounts off of retail rates. Until your volume is high enough to get good discounts, CoShipping can be a great stepping stone.

Of course, shipping cost is a combination of weight, dimensions, origin and destination, shipping method, and extra services (signature required, insurance, etc.).

Keeping it simple, check out this comparison table. Read on past the table to dive in deeper.

Diving Deeper into Shipping Costs

Some shipping methods are Flat Rate, meaning that you’ll be charged the same amount as long as you meet the requirements of that shipping method. For USPS, there are various sizes of flat rate boxes (that you can get at the Post Office or at Shipist for free!). You can pack as much as will fit into these boxes and it will cost the same to ship anywhere in the US, regardless of how much it weighs. FedEx and UPS similarly have flat rate options for their expedited shipping options and offer free packaging for you to use.

Flat rate is great and almost always your least expensive shipping option… if you can fit into the size requirements. As soon as you start shipping larger items, the least expensive options will vary more based on other factors.

First, you need to understand your weights, dimensions, and dimensional weight. As soon as your package is over 10 lbs, it generally doesn’t make sense to ship with USPS , FedEx SmartPost, or UPS SurePost any longer. For FedEx and UPS, the combination of weights and dimensions is very important. They use something called dimensional weight, which is calculated by dividing your cubic dimensions by your dim divisor. If that seems complicated, just think about someone shipping a giant box of feathers that only weighs a pound. FedEx and UPS don’t want to just charge you for a pound, they want to charge you because that box takes up a lot of space on their trucks. So, they use the dimensional weight to charge you instead.

Next, understand any surcharges that may come into play. The most common for most shippers is the residential surcharge. When shipping to commercial addresses like businesses, UPS and FedEx don’t charge extra. But, when they deliver to houses, there’s a lot more driving and walking, so they charge an extra fee (UPS charges $4 as of 2020). USPS doesn’t charge for these types of services, so in some cases they might be less expensive. Keep in mind that these surcharges are default. If you have an account with UPS or FedEx and ship a lot, you most likely have discounts off of these fees. See a list of various types of surcharges UPS has here (FedEx has a nearly identical list).

Shameless plug: If you ship with Shipist, you’ll save on these fees with our discounted rates!

And of course, the farther it has to travel, the more it will cost. To help simplify, carriers refer to what zone a package is shipping too. Zones are concentric circles around you and generally a package shipping anywhere in that zone will be the same price.

Extra services will add extra charges. Extra services vary by carrier but include things like getting a signature on delivery, getting insurance in case of damage, marking an item as non-conveyable (it can’t go through automated processing and needs a person to handle it through the processing center). Similar to surcharges, these are default fees that large shippers likely get discounts off of. See the shameless plug above.

Bottom Line

USPS, FedEx, and UPS all offer reliable shipping. The best carrier varies by your specific needs. In general, when you are shipping small items where arrival date isn’t critical, USPS is the best option. For larger items or when you need the product to reliably arrive by a certain day, FedEx or UPS are best. Feel free to drop any questions or comments below.

Ready to get started with discounted shipping? Reach out to discuss CoShipping and Fulfillment Center services from Shipist and we’ll see if it’s a good fit!