Shipping..... no wonder the P.O. is going broke.

[Modifiedmark]

Ed, at least I hope you get yours sooner or later.

I orderd some parts from the best Dolmar dealer in the world which is in Kentucky. Seems the package they shipped was lost in space somewhere. He reshipped on Tuesday and I got it on Saturday and it aint even 300 miles....

 

[67L36Driver]

I don't think the problems of the USPS lies with the clerks or letter carriers, it has to be their supervisors who either don' have the time or don't want to take the time to supervise.

 

[gcdible1]

Shipping mess

Ok, guess I'll throw my 2 cents in. I have shipped things through the USPS pretty often. I have also received through UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. I can certainly understand your disgust for not receiving your items in a timely fashion. Its very irritating!

As a son of a UPS man, and having a mother who was a postmaster, and being a former USPS letter carrier myself-Millions of items are shipped successfully each day and on on the occasion you have a problem- regardless of where you have it shipped from and who with they should be able to provide some answers as to the delay or location of your item. Thats just customer service and it is their job to help you!

Understand this though, the economic struggles within the USPS for example are being dropped on the shoulders of the carriers, drivers, and supervisors. They are all being pounded on to get an hours work done in 40 minutes. Trust me, I was the low man on the totem pole as a transitional city carrier. The sup's were relying on us to hit a home run every day regardless of the weather or workload. Its what saved their butts. I would run routes on foot an hour or 1.5 hours early almost every day, then carry off another route. I busted my butt, but enjoyed the work. Too bad a permanent job with them is not available at all-period.:bang:

Sorry for derailing a bit but, the way this country has operated has put us all in a bind. People need to put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. It needs to start with all of us.

Again really sorry for the delay on your package. As mentioned Parcel post is the absolute cheapest and slowest way to ship. Usually if its a fairly small item the money saved is only a buck, and through first class or priority parcel it usually arrives in 2-4 days.

Also a little but of sugar helps when calling in as well. Lots of times when you call in a temp supervisor answers the phone and they usually do not know much. Being patient with them goes a long way.:msp_biggrin:

Good Luck!

 

[TPA]

The next time you get nicked by your chain, you will have the peace of mind knowing that the same folks will now be handling your health care. :msp_scared:

 

[kodiakyardboy]

Ok, guess I'll throw my 2 cents in. I have shipped things through the USPS pretty often. I have also received through UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. I can certainly understand your disgust for not receiving your items in a timely fashion. Its very irritating!

As a son of a UPS man, and having a mother who was a postmaster, and being a former USPS letter carrier myself-Millions of items are shipped successfully each day and on on the occasion you have a problem- regardless of where you have it shipped from and who with they should be able to provide some answers as to the delay or location of your item..........

Living on an island in Alaska, we really have little choice when it comes to shipping. There are no UPS or Fedex shipping offices here, you have to have an account to ship either of those options. We know the UPS/Fedex drivers by name and they are contract workers. They own and maintain their own trucks. USPS is really pretty good. Priority mail comes in about 4-5 days here and is nearly the same cost as the west coast states. I own a high end firearms refinishing business and ship and receive several a week in the $2000-$5000 range and they all go USPS Priority with Delivery Confirmation and insurance. I have yet to have a damage or loss claim on anything substantial. On occasion we get a goofy package that goes all over before it gets where it needs to go. Parcel post is the worst. I had one go from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Indianapolis to Washington where it was loaded on a barge up to Anchorage and finally to Kodiak. That one took 7 weeks to arrive. All in all, we certainly appreciate having the USPS, without them we would be limited to what our Walmart, local hardware store, and very small local retail shops offer. If you think about it, who else will deliver an envelope from Alaska to Florida or anywhere in between for less than a buck? Anyone? Thank you UPS, Fedex, USPS, and all other delivery and freight services!

 

[Bill G]

Hello Ed,

If you want to please post the delivery confirmation number. It might be fun for some of us to see that un-progress by USPS

 

[AUSSIE1]

No different in the southern hemisphere Ed.

US to Sydney to Melbourne, back to Sydney then maybe to me half way between!

It goes past here that close I could just about put my hand out and collect on the way past.

Two weeks ago I bought in the same order an 18V recip saw and an 18V angle grinder from Amazon. They had to send seperatly even though they were both in stock. I received the recip saw a week ago and the grinder is supposedly due in a week!

 

[leeha]

I have also had my misfortunes with the USPS. They're the
absolute worst carrier out there. Must be because it's run by
our famous government.
Last winter i had a snowmobile clutch ballenced out in Utah.
They shipped it back to me mid January. Parcel post. I finally
recieved it end of April. I shipped a car part to Maryland
priority mail. Took over 3 weeks to get there. Sent a Homelite
C5 chainsaw to NJ and never made it. Gone forever. I like it
when they always try to push the insurance on you. I say,
If you do your job right then i shouldn't need insurance. Right.




Lee

 

[thomas1]

Yup, I'm on PEI, send a letter to the next door neighbor, it goes to the mainland first.

Duh.

Why wouldn't you just walk over and hand it to them?

Double duh, silly cow.

 

[stihl023/5]

I have packages go all over too, even back to the same place!:msp_confused:

 

[husqvarnaguy]

Sounds like it got missent.

 

[Whiskers]

Parcel Post is the worst, my experience is it will save a couple bucks but you never know where your package will end up. Luckily they all made it to the intended destination via interesting routes, but if I have to go USPS it's only priority from now on.

 

[blackoak]

I have by far had UPS crush, break, run over, smash, lose, many more packages than USPS, but I always use UPS for the larger packages I send. I do like the free boxes the USPS provide , plus my mail lady is great when it comes to picking up my packages here at home. I have to drive 15 miles to drop off my UPS packages. I just spent over 200 bucks for plain 24"X12"X12"cardboard boxes that I bought on line to ship most of the larger saws I sell with using UPS.

 

[Chris-PA]

The private delivery companies don't have to serve every location - if it's not profitable they can skip it. Not so with USPS, so the the private carriers cherry pick the better routes. The USPS is not a private corporation and does not exist to make a profit, it exists to provide an essential service.

Also, the cost structure is changing as fuel costs rise. This means they have to optimize their routing differently to focus more on reducing fuel costs - usually that means keeping trucks full. So unless you paid for faster shipping, your package may go all over the place as it hitches a ride on whatever truck is not full. So while it makes no sense to you, you are not the ones looking at the overall fuel use.

 

[stihlaficionado]

A consolidation of P.O. distribution centers is underway. In our case if you mail a package
to any address in Champaign County, it's automatically sent to Bloomington, Il. before it's
re-routed back to here.

 

[DSS]

Why wouldn't you just walk over and hand it to them?

Double duh, silly cow.

Pics??:msp_confused:

 

[a. palmer jr.]

About a week and half ago I bought a bar off ebay. Seller was great, shipped it quickly. It was in Indiana, I live in Illinois.
I've been tracking it since the seller shipped it. It was sent Parcel post.
Here's (in order) where it's been....

First.... processed in Indiana
then.... Iowa
then.... Pennsylvania
then.... New Jersey
then.... Pennsylvania (again)
then.... New Jersey (again)
now..... Missouri

I wonder where else it will end up.

It sounds stupid but there's a method to this madness. If you live in Indiana and want to send something to Nebraska, say, it would be too expensive to have a truck or plane go there just for one shipment so they send it and other parcels to a major distribution center where it's more likely they'll have something else going there. If not, within a certain amount of time they ship it with other parcels to another distribution center for shipment to Nebraska. Actually, I've been impressed by how well the Post Office is doing considering all the parcels they have to ship. The P.O. however is still losing money.

 

[lmalterna]

I once had a knife leave California, go to Anchorage, AK then to Pennsylvania before getting to Virginia. Back when I shipped reptiles Air Express, we referred to Atlanta as "The Black Hole". You could track a shipment there and it might disappear completely for a few days. Even the airline could not be sure where it was. Local airport once called me with a package but even they could not show how it got from Atlanta to here...

Stuff I ship USPS to Antipolo Philippines(23kilometers from Manila)- gets to Manila in 2-3 days but takes another 2-3 weeks to go the last 23k.... So I guess our USPS is not TOO bad by comparison.

Bill

 

[thomas1]

Pics??:msp_confused:

 

[barneyrb]

It sounds stupid but there's a method to this madness. If you live in Indiana and want to send something to Nebraska, say, it would be too expensive to have a truck or plane go there just for one shipment so they send it and other parcels to a major distribution center where it's more likely they'll have something else going there. If not, within a certain amount of time they ship it with other parcels to another distribution center for shipment to Nebraska. Actually, I've been impressed by how well the Post Office is doing considering all the parcels they have to ship. The P.O. however is still losing money.

Not trying to argue with you but shouldn't Indy or Chicago have a "major" distribution center?