Comment by kaolinite | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaolinite | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone else been hit, when sending items via UPS, by UPS's "weight" calculation?

I purchased a pair of shoes that I needed to return, going back to Italy, and I received a quote from UPS - having entered the weight on the parcel I had received - of around £50. Later, after UPS had picked up the parcel, I noticed they had charged me somewhere in the region of £80-100.

I rang up and they explained that UPS doesn't use normal weight but rather a UPS specific "weight" that also incorporates dimensions (i.e. two items that are different sizes but weigh the same will have different UPS weights).

I looked on the site and they were right - there was some information about it, plus a calculator for working it out. I must have completely missed it. To their credit, they did refund the difference and I only had to pay the original quote, but I do wonder how many other people miss it and end up paying more for their postage.

Here's how to figure out the "billable weight": http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/packaging/di...

Dimensional weight is the standard measure for large carriers now. The changeover at UPS started way back in 2007. UPS does it, FedEx does it, and USPS does it for certain classes of packages. You can thank large shippers like Amazon that often put a tiny product in to a huge box with a bunch of air bags: weight alone doesn't capture the fact that fewer of these boxes can be shipped per truck/flight than if it were packaged more efficiently.

Oh it totally makes sense - the thing that surprised me was how it was called weight on the form, so I just copied the weight across from the parcel I had received. I'm sure it was partially user error, but UPS could certainly have done more to make me aware that there was a difference.

If you're sending parcels regularly, I'm sure this is all well known, but this was the first time I'd sent a parcel myself (instead of just going to the post office and have them handle it).

They ask for both the weight and the dimensions of your package so that they can calculate the billable weight for you when you purchase a shipping label. You're not asked to calculate it on your own. I don't know what went wrong with your shipment. http://i.imgur.com/32R1nF6.png

Hm, that form is perfectly fine. I wonder if it changed (the problem I had was about a year ago) or whether it was a different site I used (e.g. a UK site) or something. I was definitely only asked for dimensional weight.

Thanks for looking into it.

Edit: have just checked the UPS site myself and they have a much nicer quote interface than I remember, including dimensions and weight.

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