Pitney Bowes Announces Peak-Season Delivery Surcharges

E-commerce and postal provider Pitney Bowes Inc. said it will impose peak-season parcel delivery surcharges of $1.50 per piece on all domestic shipments, effective Oct. 3.

In addition, the Stamford, Connecticut-based company will levy weight-based surcharges on all shipments requiring expedited deliveries, which is a time-definite guarantee of three days or less. Shipments weighing up to 10 pounds will incur a $1.25-per-piece surcharge. Those levies will climb to $3.85 for shipments weighing 11 to 20 pounds, and to $6.25 for parcels weighing between 21 pounds and the 70-pound maximum, Pitney Bowes PBI said Monday. 

The expedited-handling charge will be on top of the so-called standard delivery charge of $1.50 per piece, the company said. There will also be a $1.50 surcharge on all deliveries of product returns, it said.

Cross-border international parcels will be assessed a delivery surcharge of $1.50 per piece, Pitney Bowes said.

As what is expected to be the case with other parcel-delivery providers, Pitney Bowes will impose volume caps on shipments that exceed the customer's forecasts or are not aligned with agreed-upon delivery profiles. Additional fees will be levied on outsized shipments that are too big to be processed by conveyor machines. Pitney Bowes. Parcels consigned for standard deliveries must be inducted into a carriers' network by Dec. 12 to ensure residential deliveries before Christmas day.

All of the surcharges, except for the levy on returns, will expire Jan. 2. The returns surcharge kicks in Nov. 1 and runs until Jan. 30, in conjunction with the typical holiday return period.

Through a series of acquisitions, Pitney Bowes has evolved from a provider of mail equipment to an e-commerce technology provider. It arranges for parcels to be transported on multiple carriers, but also has a fleet of its own delivery vehicles.