Carrier Adjustments

Understanding Carrier Adjustments

This guide explains new changes coming to carrier adjustments. We explain what carrier adjustments are, why they matter, how to avoid them, including a new dashboard and tools to help, and how to dispute a charge if you believe it's incorrect.

On this page:

• What is a carrier adjustment?
• Why avoiding carrier adjustments matters
• Understanding your new carrier adjustment dashboard  
• How to reduce carrier adjustments
• What if I think a charge is wrong?
• FAQ

What is a carrier adjustment?

A carrier adjustment happens when a shipping carrier finds that a package's actual weight or dimensions don't match what was set on the label. When this happens, the carrier charges for the difference between what was stated and the actual shipping cost, and in many cases, adds an additional fee on top.

Historically, Whatnot has absorbed these costs to simplify shipping for sellers. As a result, most sellers don’t have visibility into these charges, so it’s challenging to know where the discrepancies are. As Whatnot has grown, that approach has made it harder to see what’s actually driving shipping costs and isn’t sustainable long term.

Why avoiding carrier adjustments matters

By setting accurate shipping profiles upfront, your shipments will better match their labels, helping you avoid costs from carriers and deliver a smoother buyer experience.

• Added costs:  Carrier adjustments add unexpected costs to every affected shipment  While these costs have been covered by Whatnot, over time they will be shared between Whatnot and sellers. Getting ahead of avoiding carrier adjustments now will help you reduce the amount you will be responsible for in the future. 

• Buyer experience: When a package’s actual weight exceeds what was stated, carriers may require the buyer to pay extra postage to receive their order, or return the package to the seller entirely. Either outcome is a poor experience for buyers that can hurt your reputation and lead to refund requests.

Understanding your new carrier adjustment dashboard

The Carrier Adjustment dashboard in your Seller Hub now lets sellers see their weight-based carrier adjustments for the first time. We’re starting with weight adjustments, which make up the majority of carrier adjustment costs. Dimension adjustments will be added later this year once better tooling is available for sellers to manage dimensional adjustments.

In your Seller Hub, under “Shipments,” you’ll find your Carrier Adjustment Dashboard, which gives a high-level summary of your carrier adjustments, and an Adjustment Detail page. 

Carrier Adjustment Dashboard

• The At a Glance section covers a top-line summary of your carrier adjustments over a 30 day window.  This includes: 
  • Adjustment rate: This shows the percent of your shipments during the specified period that received a carrier adjustment, along with a comparison to other sellers in your category.
  • Adjustment total: This shows the total monetary value of the adjustments you received during the period, as well as the average cost per adjusted shipment.
  • Since it can take a few weeks after shipment for us to receive a carrier adjustment, we show a period starting a few weeks back to make sure the summary is accurate.
• The Recent Charges table lists out each individual adjustment.  These charges appear as soon as we receive them from the carrier.  Each charge has a few high-level pieces of data, and you can click “View Details” to view the Adjustment Details page, which contains more information.

Adjustment Details Page

• The Adjustment Details page has all of the information you need to understand why the carrier charged an adjustment, including:
  • Adjustment info: The information on the shipping label vs. what the carrier measured.
  • Shipment contents: The individual orders in the shipment, which shipping profile was used, and the listed item weight (based on the selected shipping profile).  
    • This information is particularly useful in helping you identify inaccurate shipping profiles that may have led to a mismatch between the label weight and the carrier-measured weight.
    • Look through the orders in the shipment and look for cases where the listed item weight does not seem to match what you shipped.  
    • This is a good signal that you need to use a different shipping profile for similar items in the future.
  • Cost breakdown: Gives you a full cost breakdown of the shipment, including original label cost, any adjustments applied before the label was generated (including weight/dimension changes by the seller, additional services like signature required, etc.), and carrier adjustment costs.

How to reduce carrier adjustments

Most carrier adjustments are avoidable. 

The two main levers are setting accurate shipping profiles, and when needed, making adjustments in the Seller Hub before generating your label.

Here are the best practices we recommend sellers follow in order to avoid carrier adjustments:

1. Use the Carrier Adjustments dashboard to spot issues

The Carrier Adjustment dashboard shows your weight adjustment history, per-shipment details, and costs. Use it to identify which listings or shipping profiles are generating the most adjustments and prioritize those for review. You’ll also receive a weekly digest email summarizing your adjustments, how they’re trending, and tips for improvement.

2. Set accurate shipping profiles at listing

The most impactful thing you can do is set accurate shipping profiles before you sell. Weigh your items before listing, and choose a profile that closely reflects the actual weight. If none of the default profiles fit what you’re selling, create a custom one.

1. For individual listings: Pick a shipping profile that matches the weight of each item. Avoid using a single broad profile across listings with a wide range of actual weights. 
2. For multi-quantity or random pull listings:  Set up a few weight-tiered listings, for example, “Small Bundle”, “Medium Bundle”, and “Large Bundle”, each with its own shipping profile. When running your show, select the listing that most closely matches the item you’re about to sell. This keeps stated weights accurate without slowing down your show.

3. Make adjustments in your Seller Hub before generating a label

Check the shipment weight in your Seller Hub before generating labels to make sure they match the weight of the package you are actually shipping.  If something looks off, you can update the shipment details in your Seller Hub before generating a label. 

Go to Shipments, find the order, and click Edit Shipping Details to update the weight or dimensions. You can learn more about making a shipping adjustment here.  

4. Avoid padding your shipping profile weights excessively or overly using “max bundle size”

The goal is accuracy.  Inflating the weight on your shipping profiles and overly using “max bundle size” will lead to higher shipping costs for buyers, which will hurt your sales.

What if I think a charge is wrong?

If you believe a carrier adjustment is incorrect, you can dispute it directly with the carrier. The adjustment detail view in your Seller Hub dashboard shows the declared weight vs. the carrier-assessed weight, which is the key information you’ll need to support a dispute. You won’t need to contact Whatnot Support for routine carrier disputes.

Each carrier has its own dispute process. For USPS shipments, you can file a dispute online at apvdisputes.usps.com.

Before filing a dispute, pull the adjustment details from your Seller Hub dashboard and gather any supporting evidence — photos of the packaged item on a scale are particularly useful for weight disputes.

FAQ

Q: I use my own shipping labels (BYOL). Does this apply to me?

A: No. You will continue to be charged directly by carriers and view your adjustments in the system you use to generate labels, which is the case today.

Q: When will I see these charges on my ledger?

A: While Whatnot is absorbing 100% of the cost, you will not see these charges on your ledger.  Once you begin sharing a portion of the costs, your portion will appear in your ledger for each adjustment as they come in. 

Q: What about dimensional adjustments?

A: Dimensional adjustments, where the carrier applies dimensional weight pricing based on package size, won't be charged until later in 2026, after we have rolled out better tools to help you manage dimensions accurately. We'll communicate that well in advance.

If you have questions about your carrier adjustments not covered by this article, reach out to Whatnot Support.