Believe it or not, that is the most efficient way of doing it. Same as LTL's in trucking. LTL's (Less-than-A Load) rely on the same system. You gather up all of the mail or freight and take it to a central location where it gets unloaded, sorted and reloaded onto trucks going to a certain geographic area. The sorting terminals are huge and require lots of sorting machinery, manpower, trucks and docks.
You can't have sorting equipment and machinery at every PO in the country. If you did, postage would probably cost 4 times what it does.

I have had horrible service from usps, long before covid too. For my part usps should be privatized and everyone above the status of mail carrier let go.

I ordered some supplies from McMaster Carr on Monday for my business. I usually receive my orders from them the next day via UPS. Well, to my horror, McMaster shipped via Fedex, and i know now that there is no way in heck I will get that package this week. Fedex and USPS are pretty messed up right now.

I thought I saw a news report that UPS is restricting shipping from some of their big customers to ease the situation for other customers.

We are living in Clown world.

Then you can complain that it costs $5 to mail a Christmas card.

Then you can complain that it costs $5 to mail a Christmas card.

Who sends them? It would be a $5 fine for them cards, not a fee.

Have never had a problem with usps. Not now or in the past. If I can ship usps thats all I use. Shipped a pkg to the west coast took 3 days, I still have some bills that I have to pay by mail. Sent it out on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and they had it on Monday.

Here. Try this. Send 200 packages every day like we do. Put a $100 bill in each one so you know how I feel when it gets lost. Then report back.

Just got off the phone with the owner of a big Camaro parts reseller (not in Detroit). He said he quit using USPS 2 years ago. Said they lost hundreds of packages the year before and cost him thousands. And here I thought it was just me. I asked what about guys that just want to buy a 95 cent part. He said they'll pay $13 to have it shipped but will actually get it and have real tracking.

A company in Ohio that I buy some of our store fixtures and literature hangers and stuff from only offer FedEx. No USPS.

Also learned there are companies that will monitor your UPS (and FedEX) shipping history (you have to be doing over $250k in shipping) and will get money back from them for lost packages or missed deadlines or any erroneous charges like incorrect shipping "adjustments". They split the savings and said I could expect a 5-10% savings just by letting them go after UPS for us.

USPS stuck a bogus charge on my account a month or two ago. After my inquiring, got a call that it was a mistake and I needed to pay it, then they would refund my payment in 30-60 days. LOL NO F'ing WAY!!!!

They won't remove it from my cart so I found an alternative method to ship my relay kits. I'm not a big fish, but regularly send $250-500 of postage a month. Not anymore. Screw them.

I have a different account now to use for shipping internationally. Otherwise, not gonna send anything with them.

Funny thing, USPS never lost a single kit I sent.

My brother work in the main Post Office in St.Louis doing the maintenance on the sorting machine, he been there about 17 years.

I could tell you what he has described as the problems, but the problems aren't anything that could be posted on a public forum.

Lets just say that there are issues with who they are required to hire by the selection process the Post Office uses for hiring.

Packages get routinely lost/massively delayed at whats called the Hazelwood Sorting Facility.
It's in North County, right by Ferguson MO. That should tell you a lot.

The funny thing is that my brother says that Hazelwood building isn't actually a sorting facility.

Agreeable... no issues here, I ship/receive USPS and UPS (frig FedEx) customers items from around the country and overseas, no major delays/issues

Mike

Tracking

I have two packages sitting in Oshkosh WI - They have been sitting there for a week now

I live just north of Green Bay WI - One hour away from Oshkosh

I don’t know what to say

I have never had any problems with USPS .. service is always great .. tracking system is a bit archaic

USPS / UPS / FedEx and even Amazon have all been pretty good to me. Ok, only a handful of packages per month but pretty much the same general experience with all of them. I also allow for the dynamics of our current reality. This covid disaster has been a gold mine for online retail and a disaster for shippers. I see alot of Penske rentals with FedEx logos on them. Mix that with holiday peek and a 100 million or so mail in votes and something is gonna have to sit around and wait.

I bought some parts out of California, they shipped USPS to PA. The tracker said it was still in CA 2 wks later so I contacted the vendor. After getting past his "USPS is broken" story he went off to yell at the post office. The package showed at my local regional facility the next day. I'm gonna guess coincidence and they just got around to unloading that trailer. Thought I dodged a lost package bullet until I opened the package - received (2) drivers side parts instead of one for each side. Vendor was uber cool about it and just tossed another one in the mail stream. So far it's taken 10 days to get across country. 3 days ago it was scanned leaving the regional post office headed for my local delivery post office. That trip generally takes a couple hours.

Could be worse - I could be working for the post office.

Same here. I had to send something FedEx Saturday and it would have cost $62 to send a 2.5lb small box from Jersey to Cali by their equivalent of priority mail. Ouch!

In the last two years I've had several problems with usps, hence my ill will. I bought a rifle part from a guy in E. TN, I live in W. KY. The part came to Memphis and sat there for a couple days, then to Nashville for a couple days, then back to Memphis, then to Evansville Indiana and finally to me. I understand they have routes and hubs for those routes but there is no excuses for packages sitting for days.

I bought a rifle from a shop in Colorado and he requested a certified check. I sent it certified mail and sent him the tracking numbers so he could keep up with it's progress. When I mailed it I was told it would be there in 3-4 days. After 15 days I had to have the check stopped, (a $20 charge) and have another issued. I shipped it two day FedEx at a cost of $32. Both checks arrived the same day. The shop put the first check in the box with the rifle and shipped it. When I opened the package the rifle was in the original envelope containing the first check was sealed in a plastic bag with a large portion of one corner torn off and forklift tracks all over it. Upon opening it a corner of the check was gone along with part of the routing numbers. When I showed it to my postmaster she said, " I don't see why it couldn't be cashed". What an idiot!

I've learned that when checking the tracking if no progress is shown for a couple days and it says, "your package is in transit to it's next destination". Be prepared for a at least a delay. If publicly ran companies operated with the level of incompetency that the usps does they wouldn't stay in business for six months.

Yes, I'd pay more for a service that works.

Here I am blaming Year One. You would think for the amount they charge they would use a different vendor than the post office. Two weeks so far for 1 emblem and a neutral safety switch wire.

I had a similar situation ~ 10 years ago. Dad sent a check, it got mangled and run over. The local Post Master CALLED me, I have no idea how he got the number. I was summoned to the Post Office where they showed me a photostat of the envelop and the check. They claimed to have DESTROYED the original documents and wanted a signature from me. I don't know why but I told them no way, I'm NOT your customer, I'm the recipient. You want a signature you can ask Dad for it. You won't enjoy that conversation, he still had his volcanic temper then. squared ; I never heard another word about it. Dad figured out how to transfer money after that episode.

Can only comment on my personal and professional experience but it's not a small number. Before retiring in May I worked for an insurance company. We mailed thousands of letters, checks and estimates daily. Never had any problems except in Chicago(my job took me to different states , I worked as a Catastrophe Rep). In Chicago it was routine for mail to take a week to 10 days to deliver locally. Never had that issue anywhere else, not even California when I worked the Paradise Fires and Chico was overwhelmed due to the influx of people and companies.

My brother only uses usps for his eBay store( sells enough to support a family of 6 and pays cash for everything) . He says usps is the cheapest and fastest. On a slow day he sends out 100 pkgs daily a typical day is 200 plus.

I believe as others have stated it is more of a regional thing. I also have better luck with fedex than UPS. Thats me others experience may be different.

In the under a pound market USPS really has no competitors, it's just so much cheaper than any other alternative. Was having a lot of problems mid-year with USPS (they lost a car title, that sucked) but they have been better lately. Most of my USPS packages have been 4-5 days for deliver for First Class mail which is about normal. I ship about 50-60 packages a week, Monday was a record for me as I had 30 in one day.

USPS was supposed to deliver a package to us on the 3rd. Now it's status is "delayed" with no tracking updates. Amazon has been an absolute train wreck the last few weeks for us. Ordered some stuff that we had to have in 10 days, showed up in 12 despite me chatting online with a rep on the 10th day who promised to cancel the orders when they still had not shipped.