Petrol prices have driven Australia Post’s fuel surcharge to record highs, adding tens of thousands of dollars in postage costs for businesses such as Australian swimwear brand Budgy Smuggler.
Budgy Smuggler warehouse operations manager Tom Fewtrell says the fuel surcharge has gone from about 12.5¢ a delivery to 70¢ a delilvery within a year.“We were just basing our shipping costs off our Australia Post rate sheet, but it was through [the audit] we realised that our shipping costs had gone up 10 per cent just through [the fuel surcharge],” Mr Fewtrell said.
For a business that does half its sales leading into and over summer, the spike could not come at a worse time.In the fortnight to December 3 last year, Budgy Smuggler processed just over 3000 orders with a fuel surcharge of $389. In the same fortnight this year, it processed just under 4000 orders with a fuel surcharge of $2800.The brand expects to process about 40,000 orders this summer, meaning it’s up for more than $20,000 in additional fuel surcharge.
Mr Nair, who deals with postage solutions, blames a lack of understanding by policymakers of the correlation between environmental sustainability, fuel consumption, parcel locker optimisation and e-commerce.