Shipping to military address is much more expensive?

[CaffeineCollective]

Hi all!

I'm fairly new to Etsy and have only been selling for a few months. I sell stickers so most of my packages ship in 4.5x6.5 cardboard mailers under 1 oz., maximum of 2 oz and I provide free shipping for all orders. I buy $.64 labels from USPS for orders under 1 oz. and $.88 labels for orders between 1 and 2 oz. Recently I started getting orders with military addresses. According to my research I should be able to ship to these addresses at no additional cost with USPS but for some reason the only way Etsy will configure the shipping for these military addresses is with a UPS first class labels costing over $4 minimum. I have shipping profiles set up for the 1 and 2 oz. mailers but for some reason they are not eligible when shipping to military addresses. Since I sell low cost items I usually lose money on these orders as the cost of shipping is higher than the value of the items. Is there any way to ship to military addresses cheaper? Or is there a way to set these orders ineligible for free shipping? Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you!!

[BagmakerSupply]

@CaffeineCollective: Don't know how Etsy / Pitney Bowes handles it, but APO addresses require a customs form if you are sending merchandise which may mean that you have to use Ground Advantage (formerly First Class Parcel) rather than First Class letter.

[TBQSC]

Although military addresses are considered "domestic" and should not cost any more than shipping anywhere within the USA, they do carry specific mailing requirements, including the addition of customs forms.   Because of this, you cannot buy a FCM Letter / Flat label on Etsy ... you will need to ship via Ground Advantage or Priority Mail. 

For more USPS info, see here: https://www.usps.com/ship/apo-fpo-dpo.htm

[CaffeineCollective]

Thank you so much! Do you know if there's a way to charge a fee for military addresses only? I know you can add a handling fee to international orders but military addresses are considered domestic. 

[SewInspiredByJapan]

@CaffeineCollective  I haven't looked on Etsy, but on ebay you can exclude APO addresses from where you ship from.  Since all of my merchandise usually ships priority mail, it's not something I've looked into.  Go into your shipping profile and see.  Not sure if you can set up a separate shipping profile for APO.

[bradgoodell · Accepted solution]

You are kinda between a rock and a hard place.  If the APO/FPO address was in the US, you could ship letter mail and it would cost the same.  You could just buy stamps and ship them that way, which is cheating a bit.  But you would also lose Star Seller ratings because you wouldn't have tracking.  

I can only tell you what I would do:  Ship at the extra cost on my dime.  I'm from a military family, and would be okay doing this.  

If I was getting lots orders that were APO/FPO, I'd raise my prices a little bit across the board to cover the occasional extra cost of shipping to an APO/FPO.  

Good luck!

[CaffeineCollective]

I think the star seller rating is more important than losing out on a bit of money from the APO orders, so far its only been a few of them. I'm still new to this so I'm figuring things out as I go. My sister is currently in the army as well so I definately dont mind shipping them out at extra cost if it remains a small percentage of my total orders. 

Thank you!