The US Government has a stated aim of encouraging its citizens to buy American rather than foreign goods. One of the ways it has sought to do this was to threaten to withdraw from the Universal Postage Union unless it was allowed to set its own fees for international mail shipped into the US, and to use this to penalise customers who have goods shipped in.
As a result, from 1 July 2020 there will be an increase of more than 100% in the fees the US Postal Service charges for 'last mile' delivery of international mail.
- For example, sending a small parcel of 750g-1kg by International Standard Rate (ie, untracked Air Mail) now costs £12.23. From 1 July it will cost £17.75.
We shall accordingly have to increase the shipping charges made to US customers. It appears that this will not affect International Ecomony (ie, Surface Mail with a delivery aim of 42 days) rates, and we will leave the charge for this service as is.
We will not make the changes to our postal rates until July. If you are in the US and were thinking about ordering from us, you may wish to do so sooner rather than later.