Posted on 09/20/2011 5:31:39 AM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER
I make many of my small purchases from Amazon or Ebay. Over the last few months the USPS delivery time for small parcels has almost doubled.
I'm about ready to pay a little more for Fedex or UPS.
I’ve gotten completely skunked shipping via UPS stores a few times. $20-$25 over what I thought was a very fat estimate.
Unless you pay more for expedited shipment, Amazon has a bad habit of holding on the to the package for 3-4 days before putting it in the mail.
When checking, they will list the package as being sent but it won’t show up in the USPO system for a few days, then it makes its way to me in an orderly fashion. When I put a package in the mail, there is no such delay.
I think this is intentional on Amazon’s part to get you to pay for their annual membership.
After three years now of USPS putting mail in the wrong mail boxes, I finally went ‘postal’ on them. At first I would put the mail back in my mailbox with a nice note clipped to it that said “Wrong Mailbox”.
Until they put a $3,000 check of mine in the wrong mailbox and I discovered that they put any returned mail in a bag and ship it to Atlanta to a redistribution center instead of just taking it back to the local post office. It took almost a month to get it back.
Then I started writing in big letters on the envelope so people would know what happened to their mail. WRONG MAILBOX GET IT RIGHT AND PUT IT IN THE RIGHT MAILBOX AND DON’T RETURN IT TO ATLANTA!!! THEY DON’T NEED TO PAY A LATE FEE!!! (If it looked like a bill.) A couple of weeks ago I got what looked like somebody’s paycheck, so I just hunted up the the address and took them their mail. This sparked a Post Office war on the route. We’ll see if it gets better.
In the meantime, for my clients, I opened up a FedEx Account and now send a FedEx label with the invoices. Low cost two-day ground service, works like a charm.
If you don’t want to help the unions go with Fedp-Ex. UPS is uniionized.
Exactly!
I pay EVERYTHING online for that reason. NetFlix is about the only thing I send out in the mail.
I keep getting assorted mail belonging to others in my neighborhood.
Yesterday I got a piece of my neighbors mail that had a card in it.
Makes me wonder what of mine may have went elsewhere.
For a smaller package UPS is often twice the cost of the Post Office. I had a package yesterday that would have cost $12.60 to an address inside our own state. Postal Service, a little over $6.00.
Internally UPS is a highly stressed outfit, the demands on the drivers increasing. I consider many of the drivers my friends after they have served me for 12 years. They want out. They will be no better than the Post Office trying to deliver small parcels if it comes down to just them and FedEx.
There is a reason both of those companies charge more for residential addresses - there is less money in in for them. They can drop off 12 boxes at a business address or hunt around for 10 minutes to find Mrs. Smith to deliver an Ab Lounger from QVC. No money in it, and they are in it for the money like any good business.
I had three packages within six months stolen in the USPS system. Their tracking numbers did not actually track (maybe they do now) and the idiots print the value of the item on the outside of the box!! It turns out if a package is missing you have to wait A MONTH before you try to get it ‘traced’ by them. Some of these practices may have changed in the past couple of years. I wouldn’t know because I no longer use them.
As bad as they are, up until a week ago I had the best mailman ever. Fabulous guy. Of course they transferred him to another route. The mail came at 5:45pm last evening. We were lucky to get it.
UPS and USPS have partnered where UPS does the long haul and delivers to a local USPS office near the destination which handles final delivery. Seems like a strange way to do business as UPS has a regional distribution center about three miles from my house which has scores of trucks for local delivery.
Regards,
GtG
I remember a news story about 20 years ago about a US Congressman from PA. He dropped a letter to his office in DC in a mailbox and hoped on his horse. He beat the letter to DC.
I call it one of the costs of living in a rural area.
If government didn't subsidize rural living fewer people would live there and pristine environments would be naturally preserved by action of the free market.
Think about the ways government destroys the environment. Two biggies are:
** government subsidized roads
** tuition-free government schools with no-fee bus rides
A lot depends on your local post office, and some are not so good.
But overall, I’ve found more than acceptable service at reasonable price.
Jack
My husband and I like to ski. It is inevitable, as we drive up the mountain on government subsidized roads, we see two things servicing the multi-million dollar homes perched on the delicate alpine slopes:
** the USPS
** government school buses
Oh....And..Many many thanks to all of you Freepers who can not afford to ski for the** many** subsidies that make skiing so much cheaper for my husband and me. We especially like the “Ski with Park Ranger”. /s
Mmm... The environment is where the natural resources are. Good luck with raising all of the food for the cities in the cities. By the way, you can keep your trash and sewage there also. That way we can keep the environment pristine.
OK?
Why didn’t anyone ever think of this before? It’s is brilliant.
My experience mirrors yours. I sell a lot of reloading dies in the 3 oz range, padded envelope. Using the on-line postage system via eBay, it costs $1.75 including .19c for Delivery Confirmation (normally 70-80c - free for Priority). Stuff usually gets cross country in three-four days. Haven't lost a one since using on-line labels. No USPS complaints here.
But I don't see how it would be in UPS' interest to contract with the post office, either.
I agree on Amazon Prime. It pays for itself very quickly if you order a bunch. And, sometimes, the “free” two-day delivery turns into one day. A bonus.
I have a great idea. Let the free market determine the true cost, then charge the customer for that cost and a little bit more.
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