Learn How to Build a Data-Driven Mitigation Strategy in This Information-Packed, On-Demand Webinar

Across industries, operational and business leaders are keenly focused on risk mitigation strategies, often ones that revolve around efforts to keep costs under control. But for any company that sells online or relies on the fast and reliable movement of supplies, one risk – rising parcel shipping costs – represents an ongoing and serious threat.

That concern is particularly overt now, when shippers face not only the holiday shopping season and the peak surcharges that make sending practically every parcel more expensive, but also the carriers’ general rate increases or GRIs.

This year shippers will again be looking at a 5.9% GRI from both FedEx and UPS, with the former’s new rates going into effect on Jan. 5, 2026 and those of the latter beginning on Dec. 22, 2025. Of course, a 5.9% increase is no small increase, particularly in the context of what are often low-margin e-commerce purchases.

But two factors make the cost increases shippers, and ultimately boardrooms and c-suites, face this year particularly problematic. One is the sheer and cumulative effect of carriers’ efforts to increase revenue-per-package or RPP through GRIs. More specifically, the GRIs of FedEx and UPS represent a 27% increase in shipping costs since 2021.

The second factor is even more pressing: The GRIs, by their very nature, merely represent the increases on published rate cards, not the actual cost increase shippers face. Today, the most powerful lever carriers are using to increase RPP – and therefore the one which impacts shippers’ costs the most – isn’t GRIs at all. Instead, carriers are overwhelmingly using accessorials, cost increases that occur off of the rate card, to drive up their revenues and shippers’ costs. 

These increases, in the form of new rules and fees, new surcharges and definitional changes – for example what constitutes an oversized package or what zip codes require a delivery area surcharge, a fee that until a couple of years ago only applied to remote areas but now encompasses addresses in some of the most densely populated metropolitan areas – are now responsible for the most radical increases in shipping costs. 

If that wasn’t enough, these accessorial charges are also increasingly applied with little, and at times no warning on a frequent basis, creating even more risk for shippers and placing many organizations in a position where they have very little insight into what their shipping and fulfillment costs will ultimately be throughout the year and at any given point in time.

Attaining and acting on real shipping intelligence, informed with real data, is only way to effectively navigate such an environment, and effectively manage costs when the rules constantly change without warning. 

At this year’s PARCEL Forum our own Jack McCrum and Quinn Nelson tackled this reality with the session “How to Predict & Analyze 2026 Accessorials.” By popular demand, an updated presentation followed last month, and many of you asked for a repeat performance. With that in mind we now offer “How to Predict & Analyze 2026 Accessorials” on demand. 

It’s a must-view webinar for any shipper that needs to effectively identify, manage and mitigate carriers’ accessorial costs and the move towards dynamic pricing they reflect. In it, Jack and Quinn share not only how to decode the new accessorial landscape, but also winning strategies to design data-driven mitigation strategies that empower shippers to keep costs in check, even when new accessorial charges are introduced out of the blue. Some of these include:

  • Effective negotiation techniques;
  • How to secure bulletproof contracts;
  • Where to find operational improvements;
  • How to approach carrier diversification for greater resiliency; and 
  • The role of technology and what to look for.

To tune in, simply register here. I can promise the takeaways from this webinar are well worth the time.