Chit Chats Has Doubled Rates Overnight On Packages Under 1lb

[wilsonharborsales]

Just a heads up to sellers ... ChitChats has doubled most of their under 1lb rates now that First Class Mail has been made redundant by the USPS.  The new Ground Advantage seems to be poorly integrated into the ChitChats platform as of this morning.  Rates as of Monday July 10th are now between $8.60-$17.03 (with an average cost of $14.00) for items under 1lb, whereas they were $6.88-$12.33 (with an average cost of $9.00)  on Saturday July 8th.

[byto253]

Ouch, I have not checked out the new rates, thanks for the heads up.  They were already getting pricy for larger items, and were often higher than Canada Post.  The really small stuff was the best niche.   

It seemed they did well with a small slot of not to large but very heavy items.   To bad this option is getting less useful.

[pjcdn2005]

The usps rates  for a package under 1 lb haven't gone up with ground advantage so chit chats may not have changed everything correctly.

[wilsonharborsales · Accepted solution]

Chit Chats contacted me that this was a glitch and they have fixed the issue.  I checked for myself today, and it appears that everything has been resolved.  I love how quick Chit Chats was to resolve this issue.  Literally less than a day.  

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I tested a few rates when they introduced the new tiered system, and they seem to be in the 7-9 dollar range for a 24x19x2 (size 0, or a DVD) bubble mailer between 101-199 grams shipped from a major city in Ontario to various random US locations.

Chit Chats is inching closer to Canada Post Tracked Packet rates, but it's still a few dollars cheaper for items in this size range. Even if you buy discounted stamps. If you do enough volume, this level of savings adds up. If USPS Ground Advantage is a new thing, I hope Canada Post introduces a cheaper lite tracked program for US orders. It would be nice to be able to drop everything into a Canada Post box. 

I don't know what they will charge for Priority, but I like that they now have it as an individual option. 

[recped]

@ilikehockeyjerseys 

Not sure where you are in Ontario but consider switching to Stallion, they still allow third-party USPS labels so set up an account with Pirate Ship (free) to print USPS labels. You can also print USPS labels directly with Stallion and they are probably cheaper than ChitChats which I stopped using years ago because their pricing was getting out of hand.

Stallions domestic economy service is also really good (eg: Toronto to Kamloops in 4 days recently), you can ship to most locations in Canada up to 1lb for less than the new Canada Post Expedited Light.

https://ship.stallionexpress.ca/register/i1oZkN

The only downside is that they have fewer location for dropoff.

[musicyouneed]

Media Mail has really gone up with Chit Chats.  Last June it was $5.76 then in Dec 22 it was 6.62, then Jan 23 was 6.88 now it has gone up to $7.44.  So in one year it has gone up almost $2 per CD.   I just checked USPS and it is $3.65 US which would be about $5.11 Candian.  So Chit Chat is charging $2.33 for each item.   Cost of shipping is killing CD selling to the US.

[teenytrinkets]

Thanks for that breakdown... I always thought media mail was so much cheaper, but that's almost the same price as sending first class USPS under 4oz!