The United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) is taking steps towards a freights rate hike by an average of 4.9 percent after the holidays, affecting most shipments in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

In its most recent rate hike, UPS revealed on Monday about its plan to have the new rates take effect on Dec. 29 for its air, ground, international, and freight services.

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Earlier this year, UPS had already increased its rates to about 4.4 percent on certain packages and had pushed another 4.9 percent increases by fall.

Follow a similar tactic as its shipping rival FedEx Corp., the shipping company announced in June that ground-shipment prices for the United States and Canada's standard deliveries will be based on both box size and weight instead of basing it on the latter alone.

This comes after the shipping companies noticed an increase of lightweight shipments purchased by consumers online that were usually bought from brick-and-mortar stores.

These lightweight items, which often have free shipping, are usually contained in large packages and add to the burden of the shipping companies.

As new shipping policies take effect, online retailers are urged to make use of smaller boxes now that its dimensions are considered in the calculation of freight rates.

In a statement released on Monday, the UPS emphasized that the new rate policies will take effect before December ends, contrary to FedEx's decision to have theirs take effect on January 2015.

UPS also announced earlier in October about its new service called the UPS access point where neighborhood businesses are used as additional pick-up areas to reduce the number of failed deliveries and decrease labor cost.

Meanwhile, leaders in online selling such as Amazon.com Inc. are trying out several in-house delivery tactics to cut back on the use of third party shipping, thus easing additional costs and gain more control over shipping.

TagsUPS, FedEx, rate, freight, hike