There has been an enormous rate hike from both FedEx ground and UPS ground shipping this spring, 2007. Both companies are now calculating billing weight on the dimensional weight of a container. This practice has always been limited to air shipments, but have now made it's way to ground, too.
Horizon ships primarily in two shipping cartons, an oversize one (OS1) and an oversize two (OS2). OS1 has a combined dimension of no more than 108 inches (length and girth combined). It was previously billed as 30 pounds minimum shipping charge, no matter the actual weight. OS2 has a length and girth no more than 130 inches. This was billed as 50 pounds, no matter what the actual weight. It usually had an actual weight of 70 pounds (36 Singles). Dimensional weight, however, uses a new calculation of length x height x width, divided by 194. So, our OS1 is now billed as 46 pounds, a 53% increase! Our OS2 is now billed as 108 pounds, a 116% increase! On top of this, there is also a $6 overweight surcharge, on top of many previous surcharges, such as rural, residential, etc. This is the reason for our measly little shipping 10% increase, although most orders still qualify for free shipping..
Our changes have come in packaging, and not price increases. We have increased the number of PetPorts packaged in the shipping cartons to close the gap between the actual weight and the dimensional weight. An example is instead of cartons of 18 or 36 Single-Stall shippers, they are now in cartons on 20 and 40. I hope this explanation helps.
Thank you,
George