The United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service was Originally Posted on December 12, 2011 by lavarock

Yesterday I had a good example as to why the Post Office is in trouble.

Hewlett Packard opened an Ebay store and was again offering Touchpads at a very good price, $100 to $150 depending upon the model. Although refurbished and discontinued, many people think this is a great bauy, even if you just use it to display pictures as in a digital frame.

There were by my estimates about 15,000 units sold in the Ebay store and looking at the comments, HP took a big hit on comments with lots of negatives, almost every one having to do with the shipping cost.

The Touchpad is similar to a Kindle or Ipad in size and can easily fit in a Postal Service Priority Mail envelope or if need be, a box. Instead, the store charged $20 for UPS Ground, and that also means no PO Boxes allowed. I was thwarted because I don’t use regular delivery to the farm because of the 4-wheel drive driveway.

That $20 shipping cost was excessive compared to the $5 for an envelope or $8-10 for a box with the USPS. We the customer are paying more and putting the Post Office out of business.

So why do companies use an exclusive shipping service that costs more? certainly it may be easier to go with someone who can do it all, but at what cost? When we ship coffee from Hawaii to the mainland, many of us use USPS Priority Mail FLAT RATE envelopes and boxes. Often times our shipping cost is less than half what FedEx charges! Less than HALF!

If you think that if the Postal Service goes out of business, FedEx and UPS will just pick up the slack, you have another surprise. As I read it, they are not liable for service quarantee or refund if other carriers have a disruption. Thus if the Postal Service goes down, FedEx and UPS will get overloaded and will say “not our fault”.

I don’t know just how easily the USPS can handle major changes to its infrastructure, but I can tell you that other services that deliver packages would NOT be dropping their prices. Could the likes of FedEx or UPS handle tons of mail? I doubt that as special machinery is needed, etc.

So yes, I remain a proponent of the United States Postal Service.

I am tired of having to overpay for shipping costs (Hawaii is a somewhat special situation but not for the USPS). USPS Flat rate is the same price whether I ship to and from the town north of me or to the furthest parts of the mainland from Hawaii. A FLAT RATE for boxes often works best for us. Like the other services, I can print my own postage and label on the PC printer and either get free pickup or drop the item off at a post Office.

I am more familiar with FedEx than UPS, not having used UPS in decades. FedEx can nickel and dime you to death! Get an address wrong, there is a charge. Ship, to Alaska or Hawaii, there is an extra charge. If the item exceeds a certain size, there is a charge. Get the weight wrong, there is a charge. Residentail vrs commercial, there is a charge. No one home on first delivery attempt, there is a charge. Let the customer use a return label to return items, there is a charge for the extra label. Want to use your account but have the
item picked up at a different address, there is a charge ($10).

As you can see, you really don’t want to be shipping Christmas packages FedEx.

I like USPS because the Flat Rate service offers envelopes and boxes for free. I shove as much as I can in and know the price up front. I print my own labels and postage and the best part is when I drop it off at the Post Office. I live in a rural area, so the PO is easy. If I was in tiown, I could schedule a FREE pickup at the house! Instead, because I already have proper postage on the item, I walk past the long line of people waiting for a
clerk and place my package oon the counter. A clerk will nod that they see me and I am good to go. There are many people in line who are waiting for their home made packaging to be weighed and oftentimes the clerk will tell them that can save lots of money by taking a flat rate box from the shelf and shoving this think into it and hand-writing a label. My post office clerks encourage people to save money. Let’s see the other package places do that!

My packages get there in 3-5 business days, slightly longer perhaps than the other services. However, if I can save $5 a package or more, so be it!