USPS just restructured how they price anything under a pound, on top of two rate hikes already stacked in this year alone. UPS raised their rates too. For Baby Paper, that meant shipping a single item went from under $6 to nearly $8. And that story is playing out in workshops, kitchens, and garages across the country right now, not just here.

Small businesses don't have logistics teams to renegotiate contracts or warehouse networks to shift volume around. Most of us are running this alone, watching margins shrink every time a new rate takes effect. And every time shipping goes up, there are exactly two options, and neither one works.

We can't pass it on to customers. Amazon has trained an entire generation to expect free shipping, so the second a small shop adds a shipping charge, that sale goes to someone who won't.

We can't pass it on to wholesale partners either. Those are small stores too, run by people facing the same impossible math, and raising their cost of goods just pushes the problem downstream.

So it comes straight out of the margin. Again. For a lot of small businesses, this is the fourth or fifth "small" increase absorbed in just the last few years, and there is not unlimited room left to keep absorbing things.

This isn't an abstract policy issue. It's the difference between a small business staying open or not. Postal and carrier pricing decisions land hardest on the people with the least room to adjust, and most customers never see that part of the story.

Small businesses need real relief, and that has to start with the people who set these policies. Elected officials need to look at what rising shipping and carrier costs are doing to small businesses across this country and take action. We need to ask our representatives where they stand. The USPS is a public service. It should not be pricing the smallest sellers out of using it.

Small businesses show up for their communities every day. It's time for our elected officials to show up for us too.

Media Contact:
Name Sari Wiaz
Phone: 847-272-5588
Email address: marketing@babypaper.com