OT----USPS Shipping Rant

Just wasted an hour and a half trying to figure how to ship a chainsaw with USPS.
Had to register first and then get a price for shipping by box size and weight. I then had to enter the address of recipient, then go to print label and place on box for USPS home pickup.
Set up a day for pickup. No way that I could find a way to print label ! Only thing I could see to click on was to mail my federal tax ??? In a 17 pound box????
Went back after a few minutes and city and zip code of recipient had been changed.
Cancelled pickup from email notification.
Strange that home pickup was going to cost 1/2 of taking to Post office to ship.
I'll go to UPS or FedEx tomorrow.
Rant over.

I don't know. There is an option to print your tax labels but I've never clicked on it. Shipping packages is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. And you do get a discount for printing your label online. I use Priority Mail almost exclusively. Two things could have held you up. From the page where you enter the address (going by memory here) you next have to enter a weight and then there will be a box you check to "agree to terms" and then it will show you your box options, you can then enter your credit card info. If you skip a step the button for the next option will not show up. That's probably what happened to you. I agree, their system is not real user friendly but it works once you get onto it and they do give good service. But NEVER and I mean NEVER use Standard Mail unless you want your package broken or lost. Standard Mail is handled mechanically. (Think dump trucks and end loaders and you will be pretty close to the truth)

I just take stuff to the ups store.They package it and ship it at the buyers expense.Fedex is cheaper if I'm paying the shipping.

Some software can lead you in a circle, for sure. However, my 86 year old mother figured out how to print her labels for Chirstmas gifts last year, and USPS picked up the boxes right at the nursing home.

Well I am sure I must have missed checking something but when the "ship to" City and zip code changed, I gave up.

Not exactly so Ray. If you can save your buyers a little on shipping you will make more sales.

I agree. A lot of sites including USPS's shipping site are really poor.
From what I can tell:
You CAN print postage for Priority and Priority Express packages online at USPS's site--but it is confusing.
You can NOT print postage for ground packages online at USPS's site.
When checking pricing they DO give a discount for buying the postage online vs at the PO.

I find none of this is easy or intuitive and yes the software has plenty of bugs like address info changing. Now, I don't doubt for a minute that an elderly person can use the site to print/ship packages. What I question is if they were able to ensure they had the best price. In other words anyone can buy a new car--but it's hard to make sure you aren't getting screwed on price. And this isn't a service where the price should be variable or hard to determine--IMHO. It's funny I can get a price via their web site for shipping online and at the PO. Then find out I can't ship online ground so I take it to the PO. The price I get at the PO isn't the price the web site told me it would be at the PO either.

Now throw in ebay which allows me to ship using USPS and I'm even more confused. They appear to get and pass on discounts shipping via USPS. You CAN ship USPS ground online through ebay! I charge actual shipping so close buyers can enjoy more affordable shipping. Why is it when I get to actually shipping it I've given a discount and charged less for postage?

Well, I ship via USPS for home pickup when selling on ebay and have never been charged more than the buyer paid for shipping when listed as charging actual shipping so I'm ok there. I generally have to take anything else I ship to the PO and as for the lowest price shipping and take what I get.

P.S. That home pickup stuff. Mostly it works but some times I set it up to pick up one package and then receive a confirmation email saying I've scheduled a pickup for 0 (ZERO) packages!. I check online and it says 1. When the package is picked up I receive a confirmation that they completed a pickup but the actual number of packages differs from the number I requested them pickup.

Having worked in IT for years I can tell you this is simply another case of IT focusing on completing projects fast vs correct. Few in IT will admit that but it's culture now and all the rapid development tools only aggravate the problem by making it difficult to determine where problem might arise in applications when are changes made. Sadly if you try to report a problem they dismiss you as not knowing what your talking about--because 90% of the people complaining of problems don't.

Solution: I'm behind the times. Younger folks accept these situations as normal life. Guess I need to too.

Amen to handle with care I work loading trucks. I have worked at ups and loaded ups trucks at a online company we fill anywhere from 5 to 10 trucks a day. Plastic package gets dumped in large boxes then put on truck then you have to throw more sacks on top (osha and overload). My favorite one is customer had a sticker put on that said I'm a warm fuzzy sweater please handle with care that got bounced of the wall. And then there's the sorter it's amazing they get next day delivery. Then the want high and tight you want to know what we do to boxes?

A few years ago, we were periodically shipping vintage JD carbs to K & K Antique Tractors to be rebuilt via USPS. One day K & K called to say the box arrived empty. It had been slit open and the carb removed. Luckily, I had insured the carb. We did get our money for the carb because of the insurance.

Guess we shipped one too many and someone decided to help themselves. After that, we only ship UPS.

I can well imagine, Hahaha. I never mark a package "fragile" unless the customer asks me to. And I pack my things so I would not be afraid to throw them across the room.

Your customers will leave you for 10 cents.I'm not going to package something for free to save a cheapskate some money.Then it's an 18 mile drive to ship it.They when something goes wrong your the one that will catch heck from the seller and have to waste your time trying to straighten things out.I'm not getting involved with that.

I guess I have it handy, even though the post office and UPS dropoff is 30 miles away, and UPS is only open about an hour after 5pm. I can either leave anything or meet the mailman at my box. Next day he leaves a bill for whatever I requested. They let us order stamps/supplies from the box as well.

When I worked in the warehouse that's how we tested ups packages. We threw them. If the corners didn't open it was ready. If they did we needed more tape.

Most of our boxes could be completely crushed and still hold, we used that much tape on them.