From 1 July, Australia Post lifts Parcel Post, Express Post and MyPost Business rates by an average of 4.95%. For online retailers the increase hits margin and checkout conversion at the same time, and most owners do not know which one is costing them more.
Every dollar you add to postage at checkout is a dollar the customer feels at the exact moment they decide whether to buy. That is the worst place to take a hit.
Australia Post is lifting parcel prices again. From 1 July, Parcel Post and Express Post both go up by an average of 4.95%, and the MyPost Business rates that small retailers live on rise by the same amount. Contract customers, the ones shipping hundreds to thousands of parcels a month, get a slightly softer 4.25%.
In dollar terms a medium prepaid satchel climbs from $15.65 to $16.40, and the Express Post version goes from $19.65 to $20.40. Australia Post is trimming its fuel surcharge by 7.2% at the same time, but the headline for anyone selling physical product is simple. Shipping just got more expensive, again.
Plenty of small retailers have already said they cannot absorb it. That means the cost gets passed to the customer at checkout, right at the point where carts get abandoned.
Why it matters
For an online retailer, shipping is not a line item you can wave away. It sits inside your margin and inside your conversion rate at the same time. Raise the postage and you either eat it, which thins the margin, or pass it on, which thins the conversion. Both hurt, and most owners do not actually know which one is costing them more because they have never measured it.
Average rise on Parcel Post, Express Post and MyPost Business rates from 1 July 2026
This is the kind of cost increase that looks small on a single order and quietly bleeds out across a year of volume. A few percent on every parcel adds up to a real number on the board by December.
What to do about it
Shipping costs only move one direction. The retailers who treat freight as a number to manage, not a bill to pay, are the ones who keep their margin while everyone else quietly gives it away.