Re: OT----USPS Shipping Rant

Posted by Chris Jones on April 08, 2015 at 06:23:46 from (65.188.217.236):

In Reply to: OT----USPS Shipping Rant posted by Jiles on April 07, 2015 at 23:02:09:

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.

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