Comments on: Are local businesses adding fuel surcharges to their services?

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:51:42 +0000

Well, yes of course businesses should be adding fuel surcharges to their fees. It's only natural to pass the costs onto the consumer. How else can a small business survive, or even some large businesses? I wonder how many restaurants survive getting through the winter. Have you considered how disastrous it must be to keep a restaurant at a comfortable temperature with the rising costs, all the while fewer people are coming to your restaurant? And, for sure no one will come to your restaurant if it's chilly inside.

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By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:11:46 +0000

Roland: Interesting perspective. You bring up a good point about government regulation. I'm about fewer regulations and of the belief that in competitive markets, prices will constantly change in response to any shift in costs. But they have to be true shifts and I'm not sure I believe that's the case with some of the home services I employ. Moorea: Thanks for sharing your personal perspective. Good to know... perhaps, my cleaning service is really feeling the impact of the gas prices. I'm just not sure it's $10 per visit worth it.

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By: Moorea

Moorea — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:59:45 +0000

I know that in all of all the things I do right now, Nanny (driving to work, driving kid around) and house-calls for life coaching and parent coaching AND out of town music gigs- I really do see the price of gas effecting me significantly and turning down situations that don't pay enough. I actually lowered my amount of days as a driving nanny partially because the amount of money I spend on gas doing that is hardly worth the hours these days if I can be working from home. Great timely article!

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By: FrugalZen

FrugalZen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:31:06 +0000

Interesting….In the businesses owned by me and my brothers added Fuel Surcharges have been normal for quite a long time and it is true for all shipping.

Actually around 8-10 years ago the Federal Government wanted to REQUIRE all shippers to pass on a Fuel Surcharge that changed weekly based on the Energy Information Agency weekly fuel price averages…they even have a published table that can be found on there website http://www.eia.doe.gov

Thankfully the shipping industry beat this one back and talked congress into letting them do it for themselves instead of having it imposed on them by law.

If they hadn’t the current thought is sending a package would cost TWICE what it does now as the Surcharge is based on a percentage of the shippers normal fee and the average cost of fuel…one week 3 years ago when diesel was under $3 the surcharge was 44% on a truckload…if a shipper told you the shipping fee was $10,000 for example you would then have a $4400 fuel surchage added bringing the total to $14,400.

We all got lucky the shipping industry won against the regulators on this one.

~ Roland

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