The fee table, read line by line

Effective fee at three order values across three fee models, with the crossover at about $170. It comes from the 96-entry census, and the method behind it is documented rather than implied.

The failures in our sample are specific rather than random. Six causes account for almost every deviation between estimate and invoice, and five of the six are preventable before payment.

Treat any deviation above 5% as a signal rather than bad luck. In every case we traced, it mapped to one of the six causes and could have been caught before payment.

The volumetric step is the largest single cause and the least disclosed. If your estimate came without packed dimensions, it is a lower bound.

Comparing lanes only means something if the parcel is held constant. One parcel, one weight band at a time, one item mix — anything else is a different question with a different answer.

Express buys eight days at 1.5 kg and seven at 8 kg, for two and a half times the money. That is the entire case for choosing on weight rather than on urgency.

At 1.5 kg

About $0.69 per day saved — a deadline makes this obvious.

At 8 kg

About $1.94 per day saved — a different week is the better lever.

At 12 kg

About $2.50 per day saved — a second parcel or a later date wins.

A parcel changes hands eight times between payment and doorstep. Each handoff has an owner, a typical duration and a failure mode, and knowing which is which is what turns a support ticket into a specific question.

The two highest-leverage interventions sit at opposite ends of the chain: a 72-hour rule on the seller, and an address check before the freight payment.

1. Set a 72-hour rule at the seller handoff and act on it.
2. Write the QC verdict down before looking at the next photo set.
3. Submit consolidation before packing, not after.
4. Confirm the destination address before paying freight.

Freight is a step function, not a curve, and the four published lanes differ in where the steps fall as much as in their height. On a mid (0.8–2 kg) parcel the UK standard lane quotes $6.40–$10.80 at 1.5 kg.

The lanes differ by about 20% at the same weight, which is less than one tariff step. Changing lane to save money is usually the wrong lever: changing billed weight is the right one.

• UK standard: $6.40–$56.10 across the full weight range, median 16 days.
• Under 3 kg, express is usually worth it; above 5 kg it rarely is.
• Above 9–10 kg the question becomes parcel count rather than lane.

Both clauses are anchored to the declared value. Storage is charged against an item you have not yet shipped; the insurance ceiling is set by the value you declared. Raising one without the other creates a gap that only appears when something goes wrong.

Deadlines decide more claims than ceilings do. A parcel left unopened for nine days can lose a valid claim under a seven-day term, which is a worse outcome than a low declared value.

• Check which clock start applies before relying on a storage deadline.
• Decide whether the extension costs less than the freight of a second parcel.
• Photograph the parcel before opening it, on the day it arrives.

Transit is not one wait, it is eight. On the UK standard lane the median from payment to doorstep is 16 days, and the p90 is 28. The gap between those two numbers is where every complaint lives.

The stages people plan around are not the stages that cost time. Clearance is fast in the median case; the seller-to-warehouse stage and the last mile together account for more than half the total.

Holiday closures

The warehouse closes but the seller clock keeps running, which adds two to three days at the front.

Battery or liquid declaration

A different export route, adding two to four days.

Address failure

A failed delivery attempt adds two days and sometimes a redelivery fee.

Peak season priority loss

The economy lane loses queue position from late October.

Everything in this reading comes from one of three sources, and each figure says which: measured from our sample, community-reported, or read from a published term. Where none applies we write “Not measured” instead of filling the gap.

Measured

Stage timestamps and weights from the 96-entry sample, collected on 2026-10-05.

Community-reported

Patterns that recur in buyer discussions and that we could not reproduce ourselves.

Published

Read from carrier tariffs, agent fee pages and destination thresholds.

Not measured

Anything we could not source. Written as such rather than estimated.

Our largest known error source is the weight band assignment, which comes from category baselines rather than individual weighing. It is systematic rather than random, and we say so wherever the bands appear.

Sample sizes are given for every range on this site. A range without a sample size is not a measurement, it is an opinion.

The census splits the bill into item value, domestic delivery, service fee, international freight, duty and insurance. On a shoes order the item averages $60.89, and the five remaining segments together span $7.50 to $74.40.

The narrow segments — domestic delivery and insurance — are not worth optimising. Together they rarely exceed 4% of the total, and both are largely fixed once the weight band and the declared value are set.

Our sample holds 19 shoes entries, with an average item value of $60.89 — position 2 of 8 by value. The category’s shipping behaviour matters more than its price, though, and that is set by density rather than by cost.

The sample splits 38 light, 44 mid and 14 heavy. Which category you order from moves you between those groups more than any other single choice.

• Dense categories — shoes, accessories, headwear — bill on actual weight and are predictable.
• Bulky categories — jackets, hoodies — bill on volume and change at packing.
• Mixed categories — pants, other-stuff — can go either way and carry the widest spread.