Rant on shipping

[1Mech]

I HAD one vendor who seemed to have an item in stock that others did not (backordered) so I ordered through them at a higher price. AFTER the whole transaction was complete, they notified me that my order would ship when they received more from the manufacturer. Backordered!

So you cancelled the order and got a refund, no?

 

[Jstpssng]

So you cancelled the order and got a refund, no?

Back when I was on a "Made in USA" kick I ordered a pair or two of jeans. They charged my account immediately... then informed me they would send them as soon as they get enough orders to buy from the manufacturer. Huh? I canceled the order and got a refund.

 

[1Mech]

My wife and I both sell quite a few things on Ebay and we both have worked in a USPS mail processing facility, she retired, I am still there, but my retirement is about two months away. Anyway, I get to see many packages get damaged during processing. Sometimes the contents remain with the package, sometimes they don't.
It is important, if you are shipping something, whether by USPS, UPS or Fedex or some other shipper, to package the item securely so it does not shift around inside the box during the processing. There is very little human handling of packages, or letters for that matter anymore. It is all done by machine which don't read your fragile, do not bend, glass, etc messages. The machines only look for an address, they also weigh and measure the package. I recommend placing an address label with the delivery address securely attached to the item inside the box you are shipping. If you can also attach a copy of the tracking barcode, that is even better. Then, in the unlikely event your contents get lost from it's box, at least the shipper will know where to send it after re-wrapping. If you don't have an address label on it, it will probably end up in the lost mail auction in Atlanta, sold to the highest bidder.
It is also important to securely attach your shipping label to the outside of the package, don't wrap your box with wrapping paper or kraft paper which rips and tears and lets the address be lost. Use the shipping labels the shipper allows you to print online, don't hand write the label using a ball point pen which can barely be seen.
Of course, none of these tips will help with things a shipper is sending to you!

 

[bunchgrass]

So you cancelled the order and got a refund, no?

After a week or two and no word on our order, checked a different vendor who had stock (veterinary supplies). Ordered from them and cancelled the other order.

 

[bunchgrass]

My wife and I both sell quite a few things on Ebay and we both have worked in a USPS mail processing facility, she retired, I am still there, but my retirement is about two months away. Anyway, I get to see many packages get damaged during processing. Sometimes the contents remain with the package, sometimes they don't.
It is important, if you are shipping something, whether by USPS, UPS or Fedex or some other shipper, to package the item securely so it does not shift around inside the box during the processing. There is very little human handling of packages, or letters for that matter anymore. It is all done by machine which don't read your fragile, do not bend, glass, etc messages. The machines only look for an address, they also weigh and measure the package. I recommend placing an address label with the delivery address securely attached to the item inside the box you are shipping. If you can also attach a copy of the tracking barcode, that is even better. Then, in the unlikely event your contents get lost from it's box, at least the shipper will know where to send it after re-wrapping. If you don't have an address label on it, it will probably end up in the lost mail auction in Atlanta, sold to the highest bidder.
It is also important to securely attach your shipping label to the outside of the package, don't wrap your box with wrapping paper or kraft paper which rips and tears and lets the address be lost. Use the shipping labels the shipper allows you to print online, don't hand write the label using a ball point pen which can barely be seen.
Of course, none of these tips will help with things a shipper is sending to you!

A long time ago, I was hired by UPS as a holiday temp worker from T-Day through NYD at a load center in So Cal 11PM to 3AM. Huge place with at least 30 bays for semis to be loaded and I assume the same number on the opposite side of the building for unloading. In between, packages were sorted and placed on the appropriate outbound semis or local metro trucks. To get hired, you had to sit with a rolodex of city names and zipcodes and memorize them. I had Arizona along I-10. You then had your own 40 or 48 foot trailer to load by yourself. Once the packages start flowing into your truck, it's katy-bar-the-door. You were supposed to read the zip on every box, make sure it belonged, and then strike through with a grease marker. Crazy. You'd see everything from a box of ball bearings to a box with a bottle of wine in it (leaking ). 4-wheel drive bumpers, car tires etc.

 

[kenmbz]

USPS pickup at a vendor 30 minutes west of me, then went to a USPS site 1 hour east of me. There is a big USPS hub not too far away. Guess I won't see my package for a while.

 

[CliffordK]

I'll order something online and a few hours later get an email "YOUR PACKAGE HAS SHIPPED". Then I go to the appropriate web sites and see: follow the links further and see at UPS.

I don't see that a lot with stand alone companies.
I think E-Bay strongly encourages vendors to ship stuff quickly. So as soon as the order comes in, they'll create a label and mark it as shipped, but it could take them several days to actually drop it in the mail.
I rarely give negative feedback on E-Bay. However, I did have a vendor that marked the item as "shipped", but didn't add a tracking number. Then a couple of weeks later when it hadn't arrived I sent a note asking for a tracking number. The vendor never actually had the item, and simply forwarded the order to a drop shipper that also was out of stock. Nobody actually shipped the item they had marked as shipped.

Losing packages is rare.
However, I've had issues with USPS that they have decided to never deliver anything that doesn't fit in the mailbox. They'll leave the pink slip in the mailbox.
I took one in to get a package and they couldn't find it. I presume they had loaded the package back on the mail truck to drive around the neighborhood and never deliver it, and left another pink slip in the box.
When I took the second pick slip in, they told me they had probably simply sent the package back to the vendor. But they couldn't give me a full ID of who had sent it, and who they sent it back to.

 

[CliffordK]

USPS pickup at a vendor 30 minutes west of me, then went to a USPS site 1 hour east of me. There is a big USPS hub not too far away. Guess I won't see my package for a while.

USPS has decided to consolidate sorting operations, I think nationwide.

So, if a letter or package is sent from a Eugene address to a Eugene address, it all gets shipped up to Portland, sorted, and shipped back to Eugene. Thus what should have been a next day delivery always takes 1 or 2 extra days.

 

[RandyT]

USPS pickup at a vendor 30 minutes west of me, then went to a USPS site 1 hour east of me. There is a big USPS hub not too far away. Guess I won't see my package for a while.

I had a package ship from Amazon the other day. It started at the closest Amazon hub to me. But it went from that hub in Missouri to California and has been to two different locations in Cali, and will eventually return to the same hub it was shipped from so they can drop it at the local post office.

 

[1Mech]

It is not too unusual for a package to get missorted due to mechanical problems or jams on the machine. If the person "sweeping" the machine doesn't keep the chutes clear, packages can and do end up in the wrong bin. If no one catches it, your package destined for Tulsa, may end up in Syracuse, where it will, hopefully be resorted to Tulsa. Lost time is the result. Also every time a package goes through a machine, there is a possibility of damage or even loss. Every so often, while doing maintenance work on processing equipment, I will find a small package which fell down "between the cracks" Hopefully it hasn't been there too long, but I will get it back on it's way to it's destination. I have found letters over a year old, but, considering how many mail pieces we process every day, the percentage of lost or damaged mail is tiny! But, if it is your mail that is lost or damaged, it is pretty important to you!

 

[mjonesnh]

Ordered generator parts Jan 18. Shipped the 19th from las vegas, arrived in Memphis Sunday evening the 20th. That is far as they have gotten, tracking shows running late, moving in network. Never made it out of distribution facility according to tracking. Priority mail package cannot make it 200 miles to my house in 4 days . Just contacted USPS but have doubts it will do any good. Probably lost in transit or walked out of building on its own.

Package showed today. Can't say whether contacting USPS had anything to do with that or not. Maybe coincidence it showed next day, maybe not. Received email from person identifying herself as supervisor of the local post office telling me it would be delivered this morning. 5 days from Memphis to Nashville area for a priority mail package! Dunno

 

[1Mech]

Package showed today. Can't say whether contacting USPS had anything to do with that or not. Maybe coincidence it showed next day, maybe not. Received email from person identifying herself as supervisor of the local post office telling me it would be delivered this morning. 5 days from Memphis to Nashville area for a priority mail package! Dunno

Glad you received your package, the fact that you had an email from the supervisor indicates your call did some good, otherwise, it would have just showed up as another piece of mail.
I do machine maintenance at the Tulsa Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), I have had front office people come out looking for individual mail pieces before, so calling about lost mail will not hurt. Might not help either, just depends. We process over 23.8 million packages every day, it is amazing that an individual piece can be found, but it does happen. Just be glad your package didn't get missorted and head back to Las Vegas or some other place. I had that happen to a package coming to me once.

 

[Jstpssng]

A couple of oddities from the postal service. When I was self employed, one of my bread and butter contracts was from a local paper mill. I gave them a good price because I could work around my schedule, and also an invoice on Tuesday morning would see a check on Friday.
Usually.
The time I really needed the money as I was going away the next week and needed 4 tires, the check didn't show. The auto scanner read a "0" as "6", and my check visited half the country before landing in my mailbox.

More recently, I didn't get my check stub. After a few days I was thinking about contacting HR, when I recieved a call from a coworker. Somehow the envelopes holding our check stubs had stuck together until getting to his post office... 200 miles away.

 

[Oaktree]

Glad you received your package, the fact that you had an email from the supervisor indicates your call did some good, otherwise, it would have just showed up as another piece of mail.
I do machine maintenance at the Tulsa Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), I have had front office people come out looking for individual mail pieces before, so calling about lost mail will not hurt. Might not help either, just depends. We process over 23.8 million packages every day, it is amazing that an individual piece can be found, but it does happen. Just be glad your package didn't get missorted and head back to Las Vegas or some other place. I had that happen to a package coming to me once.

You make an excellent point, one that can easily get lost in all the whining. That is a huge volume of mail, and the fact that probably 99.999% of it gets where it's going in a timely manner is pretty amazing.

 

[newbury]

You make an excellent point, one that can easily get lost in all the whining. That is a huge volume of mail, and the fact that probably 99.999% of it gets where it's going in a timely manner is pretty amazing.

And judging by the stuff we get, especially from September thru January, it doesn't need to get there anyways.
I normally get the mail from my mailbox. I'll bring in a pile of mail and for every piece we needed to get (bills - no one sends snail mail anymore) there will be 20 pieces of "other". Calendars, charity, political flyers, ads etc.

And probably the only reason we get a bill by mail is because I sell trees and thus I don't sign up for email only billing.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

Before Canada Post got into package delivery in a big way, the rural mail lady delivered occasional packages to our house if they wouldn't fit into the central mailbox. Things have gone from very good to much less desirable with her retirement.

In current Canada Post jargon, "We attempted to deliver your package" on email or in a notification in the mail box means, "It has arrived at the local post office. Please come to the office and wait while the clerk digs through the pallet-sized box for your parcel." This adds a two-day delay to the eta for the parcel. When I tell vendors of this delay, they sometimes send things by other courier services, though Purolator recently delivered a very expensive package to me from fifty miles away by routing it up and down the 401 several times before heading north with it.

 

[JethroB]

Before Canada Post got into package delivery in a big way, the rural mail lady delivered occasional packages to our house if they wouldn't fit into the central mailbox. Things have gone from very good to much less desirable with her retirement.

In current Canada Post jargon, "We attempted to deliver your package" on email or in a notification in the mail box means, "It has arrived at the local post office. Please come to the office and wait while the clerk digs through the pallet-sized box for your parcel." This adds a two-day delay to the eta for the parcel. When I tell vendors of this delay, they sometimes send things by other courier services, though Purolator recently delivered a very expensive package to me from fifty miles away by routing it up and down the 401 several times before heading north with it.

Huh. I didn’t realize Purolator still existed. We used them regularly in the late 80’s and early 90’s. In one weekly payroll circumstance, Purolator didn’t deliver to a remote location so an employee had to drive 90 miles each Friday to a city they did serve. Easy Friday for him.

 

[1Mech]

And judging by the stuff we get, especially from September thru January, it doesn't need to get there anyways.
I normally get the mail from my mailbox. I'll bring in a pile of mail and for every piece we needed to get (bills - no one sends snail mail anymore) there will be 20 pieces of "other". Calendars, charity, political flyers, ads etc.

And probably the only reason we get a bill by mail is because I sell trees and thus I don't sign up for email only billing.

You can't really blame the Post office for all the junk mail we get. The Post Office does not create the mail, we only deliver it. Others create the mail, spend good money doing it. It is estimated that direct mailers will spend upwards of $40 Billion on direct mail in 2023. (New Research Underscores Direct Mail's Resilience) I guess someone is responding to it or these mailers would not be spending that kind of money on it. They also create many jobs, mostly here in the USA, in addition to the jobs at USPS.

 

[newbury]

You can't really blame the Post office for all the junk mail we get.

I'm not blaming the PO for junk mail, but the PO makes the rules on delivery and I daresay I for one could easily put up with a 3 days a week delivery schedule.
I'm a big fan of the Post Office.
When I was growing up my Father sold an acre or so of land to the PO and they built a small Post Office, with parking next door. About 30 yards from our front door and halfway to my 3 room grade school. So from about 3rd through 7th grade I frequently stopped at the PO on my walk back from school and really enjoyed it.

 

[Pixguy]

Other than a power hungry postmaster once every carrier I've had have been very good,