Mount Hope Wholesale passes the shipping cost to you unless the order qualifies for free shipping. We don’t mark up this cost, and do our best to get an accurate rate from FedEx during the checkout process.

For deliveries to residential addresses, this will usually mean seeing the shipping cost change during that flow. We start with a zip code only estimate, then refine the cost as the address is fully entered.

What goes into the price?

FedEx determines the base rate of a shipment from the shipping zone (how far, roughly, the destination is from the origin) and the weight of the box.

From there surcharges are added. There are literally dozens of these fees that can be applied in the end, but only a few come into play when determining what you pay.

• Fuel Surcharge
  Fedex levies a surchage for gas that is charged as a percentage of the sum of the rest of the fees.
• Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS)
  The Delivery Area Surchage is levied on any shipment where the destination is outside of a major metropolitan hub. ‘Outside’ is not well defined, unfortunately. There are standard, extended and remote versions of this fee, corresponding with increasing range from urban centers and with increasing costs.

Additional Residential Costs

Shippers charge more for residential home delivery than they do for deliveries to commercial addresses.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about zone classifications here. A legitmate business may have an address that’s in a residentially classified zone, and a residence may be in a commercially classified zone.

When delivering to an address in a residentially classified area, FedEx charges more in 3 distinct ways:

• Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS)
  This is the same as described above, but when going to a residential address, they charge a significantly higher version of this.
• Residential Surchage
  In addition to increasing the DAS for residentially classified addresses, FedEx also charges a ‘Residential Surchage’. This is a flat fee for all home addresses, and doesn’t change based on proximity to metro hubs like the DAS does.
• Fuel Surchage
  Because the two charges above have increased the cost of the delivery, the fuel surcharge also increases. When delivering to a residential address, even if its closer to the local FedEx station than a commercial address is, the fuel charge will be higher.

When entering only a zip code on the cart page to get shipping estimates, FedEx will assume a commercial delivery. Therefore the price of delivery to a residential address is pretty certain to increase once the full address is entered on the checkout page.