USPS Ground Advantage Gripes

[Woodtroll]

I feel your pain. USPS parcel service has gotten to be horrible. It's almost a 50/50 bet that a parcel headed my way will be misrouted in delivery, and usually if it happens once it then hits multiple off-route centers before it gets to me. That used to happen only once in a blue moon.

I'm currently waiting on a package that was supposed to arrive two days ago. It left California, made it to Memphis, then stopped in Nashville, then Richmond VA, then Washington DC, then Greensboro NC, then Roanoke VA (which is the hub it should have gone to straight from Memphis).

As I said, this happens almost half the time now. And nobody with USPS can tell me why or appears to care. But they get their regular postage increases just the same...

 

[BobHufford]

You should ask the eBay seller if they would ship via the carrier / service-level of your choice and then invoice you for any bump in the rate. They have all the options at the time of label creation. I set my auctions up with Priority as the default option and USPS Ground as a cheaper option. I prefer Priority (as a seller) as the service is usually good and I get the 12”x12”x8” boxes for free. I will sometimes upgrade a buyer (for free) who has chosen the Ground option to save the headache of finding a plain box. Usually it’s just a couple dollars more for Priority if the box stays under 12” in all dimensions.

 

[The Lost Cowboy]

I feel your pain. USPS parcel service has gotten to be horrible. It's almost a 50/50 bet that a parcel headed my way will be misrouted in delivery, and usually if it happens once it then hits multiple off-route centers before it gets to me. That used to happen only once in a blue moon.

I'm currently waiting on a package that was supposed to arrive two days ago. It left California, made it to Memphis, then stopped in Nashville, then Richmond VA, then Washington DC, then Greensboro NC, then Roanoke VA (which is the hub it should have gone to straight from Memphis).

As I said, this happens almost half the time now. And nobody with USPS can tell me why or appears to care. But they get their regular postage increases just the same...

Memphis to Roanoke via Richmond, DC and Greensboro sounds a bit out of the way to me.

Are you actually from Roanoke? One of my best friends is from there. All the stories he tells me, I feel like I know the place.

 

[The Lost Cowboy]

You should ask the eBay seller if they would ship via the carrier / service-level of your choice and then invoice you for any bump in the rate. They have all the options at the time of label creation. I set my auctions up with Priority as the default option and USPS Ground as a cheaper option. I prefer Priority (as a seller) as the service is usually good and I get the 12”x12”x8” boxes for free. I will sometimes upgrade a buyer (for free) who has chosen the Ground option to save the headache of finding a plain box. Usually it’s just a couple dollars more for Priority if the box stays under 12” in all dimensions.

I have thought about doing just that but my eBay purchasing days are almost done (for now anyway) and so I’m just grinning and bearing it (and griping to anyone who will listen ). But when I return from Asia if I get back into collecting, I might take that approach.

 

[Woodtroll]

Yeah, that package did a jig or two. And it was Priority…

I live west of Roanoke near Floyd. I just retired from a public service career in Roanoke County. I enjoyed it very much, but do not miss the long repetitive drive. Folks often asked why I didn’t just move closer, but I’m very happy living in the rural area that’s been home almost my whole life.

 

[georgie girl]

It seems like lots of sellers have moved to 'ground advantage' which to me is anything but an advantage. I cringe when I see that is how it's being shipped because it always seems to take forever to reach me on the west coast and it seems to cost me as much as I pay to have an item sent priority. The only thing worse is when an item comes DHL in country.

 

[The Lost Cowboy]

It seems like lots of sellers have moved to 'ground advantage' which to me is anything but an advantage. I cringe when I see that is how it's being shipped

Same here … cringe!!

 

[Darrell2688]

Hello Fedora Fans,

I am glad that I found this thread, thanks to Rogueclimber, I sell a lot of hats on Ebay and when an item sells Ebay offers the seller a discount on postage, mainly ground advantage. I am going to post on my ads that I will ship my hats using FedEx if I can get a good price on shipping. I will have to check into that, I will call the local FedEx office and see what the cost will be. If USPS wants to mess up on shipping then they will be the company that will be at a loss.

Have a Great Week,
Darrell

I just checked the FedEx rates, I called the 800 number and shipping from KY to California the rate, providing the automated service is correct, is $35.00, I rounded up from $34.83, if the package is picked up at a FedEx location and that would work out as long as the customer is close to a FedEx location. I will have to setup a FedEx account to ship my packages and I will have to drive about 20 miles one way to ship the packages, but if that is the best way to ship to my customers, then that is what I will do.

 

[shopkin]

Some additional perks come with a FedEx account. You can quickly look up shipping cost for all the available services, review your order history, tracking and delivery notification, have the tracking number automatically sent to the buyer's email, print labels so you do not have to gripe with the carbon copy thing,. Also, you can have FedEx pick the package up at your house at no cost. In some rare cases you may get an additional discount if you live somewhere that has a lot more incoming cargo than outgoing cargo (like here in Hawaii). You can arrange to have a package picked up at a seller's house and shipped to you on your account with no shipping cost or hassle for the seller.

You will want to have a B&W printer and a scale.

 

[Darrell2688]

Thank you Sir, Looks like a plan to me, the weight of my packages have all been a little over 1 pound and I ship in a 14" x 14" x 7" cardboard box, I use foam core poster board to make a cylinder that I tape down in the center of the box, then put bubble wrap, or brown wraping paper around the outside of the cylinder, then place the hat in clear plastic bag upside down in the cylinder, add 2 layers of bubble wrap over the hat and include a copy of the postage label inside with a letter to the customer, the letter has the customers address on it also. Everything weighs just a little over a pound and they always round up, so 2 pounds.
Looks like it is time to open a FedEx account for shipping.

 

[shopkin]

That sounds like a really good box size. The couriers and USPS use "dimensional weight" calculations. It sounds like an oxymoron. Since hats do not weigh much, the box dimensions always determine the price.. Thats why people try to squeeze them into as small a package as possible. It's worth the effort to find a box size that the hat will just barely fit in. Maybe one box size for westerns and a smaller box size for everything else.

Metropolitan areas will have specialty wholesale packaging suppliers. They have access to all the box manufactures and will usually special order a certain size if you buy a full bundle (usually 50 boxes). Buying boxes from U-Line or other online suppliers will cost much more than picking them up locally.

 

[Darrell2688]

The 14"x14"x7" works pretty good for me, even with those deminsions sometimes I have to put the hat in the box and push the brim down a little so the hat will fit without causing a crease or curve to form in the brim that shouldn't be there. the problem is that the front and back of the brim will touch the sides of the box. I always put the hat inside a clear plastic bag before I put it in the box, during shipment that hat will move during shipment and if the felt is in touch with the cylinder of the cardboard box anywhere the movement will rub a spot in the felt and those rub spots can be hard to remove.

 

[Darrell2688]

Has anyone received a missing package that the USPS had lost? If so how long after the package was lost did it show up?

 

[The Lost Cowboy]

Has anyone received a missing package that the USPS had lost? If so how long after the package was lost did it show up?

Earlier this year, I recieved one almost three weeks after it was lost.

 

[Zombie_61]

Has anyone received a missing package that the USPS had lost? If so how long after the package was lost did it show up?

Yes, once. USPS lost it, then said I had no recourse because I hadn't paid extra for "insurance". I filed a claim anyway, and approximately three weeks later it was delivered to my house ONLY because the courier somehow remembered the package, remembered where it was actually delivered, and hounded the people who received it until they gave it up. Bottom line, most of the people working for the USPS don't care one bit about your mail or packages unless they somehow get in trouble for not delivering them in accordance with "company policy".

 

[quikrick]

I very recently bought a piece on ebay (not hat related). The item was local, about 50 miles from my house. USPS Ground Advantage... tracking showed the package went from the Bay Area down to Southern California, about 400 miles south of me, it worked it's way back to the Bay Area. It only took 15 days!

 

[Darrell2688]

I talked to our mail carrier and she told me that they are going to combine her office with another post office further away from us and she is going to get a cut in pay, the distance that she will have to drive to work will increase, her delivery route will increase, and she will get a cut in pay. If this crap is happening across the country, then I think that I can understand the mail carriers delivery attitude. On top of all of that our mailing address might change, just the address, not the house. I don't know who is in charge of the USPS system right now, but who ever it is, they should be replaced before they screw up the system even more. Just think about it, they recently increased the cost of a stamp, they are closing branches and combining branches, changing mailing address, changing mail routes, staff is short handed and they will lose more employees. If they need to cut cost to show a profit, then the people in control, upper management needs to get a cut in pay, Louis DeJoy is the postmaster and his last name says a lot, he is taking the joy out sending anything using the USPS.

 

[shopkin]

When internet marketing and billing started in the early 2000's, USPS volume collapsed. Ebay parcel shipping was the only bright spot in their future.

Their biggest mistake may have been closing their brand new and expensive automated sorting centers.

Dejoy became postmaster in 2020 and there have been attempts to get rid of him ever since. The postmaster is appointed by the USPS governing board they can't get rid of them either.

USPS has had two "reforms" since 2020. Every time they reform their service gets worse and the USPS personnel moral further deteriorates . It has turned into a viscous cycle.

 

[GHT]

Can anybody shed any light on why this service is so bad? I am a trucker so I know how things can get hung up…. but last Friday my USPS distribution center (the one in my town here in Alabama) received a package via ground advantage and put the dang thing on an airplane to Los Angeles!

And I’ve had two other “WTF?!” experiences since the beginning of the year, including one where the hat was lost for so long the the seller actually issued me a refund.

I guess maybe this is a bitch and moan thread but the USPS service appears to be degenerating in front of our eyes.

It's much the same here in the UK. The service levels are entirely of the industry's making. The delivery companies expect their drivers to deliver impossible levels daily. The constant pressure causes drivers to quit, new drivers receive little or no training, they don't last long. And so the service level declines further.

There was a time when the only form of proof of delivery was the receiver's signature and printed name. Nowadays the package is left, exposed to the elements, thieves and leg cocking dogs, the driver, having scanned or photographed the package, has the proof of delivery, (for what it's worth,) and goes off to the next delivery.