Discussion: The USPS

[juri]

Thats what I find. I dread shipping to Brazil... Actually I refuse to ship to individuals, due to so much sketchiness. Our Brazilian partner has me ship to a freight forwarding company in Florida... They don't even trust their own postal service. It isn't USPS's fault down there. Similar experience with shipping to France, but in that case it is French customs sitting on packages for so long... Maybe in retaliation to US customs holding up unpasteurized stinky cheese so long that it goes bad!? I keed.

 

I flew to Belgium once to visit my family over there and I brought an epiphone, they had 5 people at customs and they saw the guitar case so they pulled me over, I told them that I live in the US and they had to let me go. It's one of the reasons I don't understand the people on here complaining about the USPS. You go look at the postal service in Belgium and it's like a different world.

[Brian Marshall]

Brian, it really just sounds to me like you and Nick have just had to deal with some REALLY douchey UPS Stores. Our store is #3 out of almost 150 stores in our region (overall sales), so I know we really do go above and beyond. The fact that I'm a simple retail clerk and have absolutely no managerial job title and still know all these details about how UPS and USPS operate says something about our specific store more than any other I guess... We may have 20 people in line at Christmas, but I guarantee no one ever has to wait more than 10-15 minutes to be helped. You're right though about the customers - they really are idiots. I can honestly say that this job has made me realize that there are FAR more stupid, inconsiderate, selfish, ungrateful and unthoughtful, asinine, and braindead human beings than I ever thought possible.

I've been in several UPS stores, mailboxes etc, kinkos/fauxfedEX, and other similar stores. While I will admit all these sorts of stores have widely improved over the past 10 years or so, they still seem to have issues with turnover. I've been using the same UPS store for four years. I think they've turned over every employee at least twice since we started going to this store. They don't seem to value experience, and probably don't pay enough to retain people.

The UPS store we use now is certainly better than the one we used to go to. They are usually very nice. Nice doesn't really cut it though when you are looking for someone who can actually be helpful.

As for the UPS Stores not taking your insured packages... That's just plain odd. Like I said before, they are a LLC store - even if some stupid employee decides to burn it to ash with kerosine while it's still in the store, the store itself cannot be held liable for it (you could sue the employee of course, but not as an employee). We take $1,000 shipments every day - dropoffs included. Just makes way more sense from a business standpoint to bring IN people and business; not send them away.

I have had this discussion with multiple UPS drivers, and at the UPS store. If we print our own shipping label on our account, the driver has to sign off on the package when he takes it. I need that signed form back to file a claim. Technically we can drop the package there, but if we file a claim we run the risk of them siting that as a reason for not paying the claim.

The other pain in the ass about the UPS store is that we have to be there by 2pm for a package to go out that day. Otherwise it sits there overnight until the driver comes by at 2pm again. We can drop stuff at our postal satellite (no retail counter) until 4:00, and at the regular post office until ~5:30 and still get our packages on the truck/plane the same day.

Like i said... at my old job I dealt with UPS every day for nearly 10 years. We had a daily pickup and usually had anywhere from 25 to 50+ packages per day. For seven of those ten years I was in charge of the UPS account. For what we were doing (large packages business to business) it made sense, but it was always more expensive and slower than the post office... and this was back when the post office was still turning a profit, or breaking even most years.

A lot of the packages i ship now go to residences. UPS sucks for this. We are also in Oregon, so 95% of the country is 3+ days away via UPS. USPS takes two days for the whole country, pretty much without exception.

I also really hate shipping on line on the UPS website. And their online billing is just silly. If i pay them online I have to go through six or seven steps.

As far as UPS guaranteeing delivery... What happens if they don't deliver that birth certificate. Say it get's lost, or a plane crashes, or a shipping center floods. All UPS will do is refund the shipping costs. It's not like they are going to absorb any of your expenses for getting your documents replaced.

USPS does have guaranteed international shipping services (global express guaranteed). They actually contract some of it to FedEX.

For what it's worth USPS doesn't allow us to insure international packages for more than $500 when we ship on line. We actually have to go in to the post office and ship them if the customer wants full insurance.

We did have one package to australia that was completely destroyed along the way somewhere. shipped via USPS. In nearly 8 years, thousands of packages, and about ten thousand pedals that is the only freight damage anyone has contacted us about.

We have had a few international packages get lost for a while. The two I can remember specifically both went to italy, where they apparently sat in customs for 3 months. We reshipped both orders and 3 months after they received the replacements the originals showed up. Very odd, but the rare exception, not the rule.

We've had great luck shipping FedEx international as well.
I don't think we have had any international UPS packages lost or destroyed, but I do remember shipping one to Japan a while back where UPS would not accept the address. It turned out UPS doesn't allow dashes in Japanese postal codes. I couldn't figure that out when I was trying to do it on line. The UPS store (well the girl that was there at the time) couldn't figure it out either. I ended up spending nearly an hour on the phone talking with fedEX.

Oh and I do talk to our post office on the phone occasionally. Our local post office that is. not some call center in DC or NY. The best part is I usually know the person I'm talking to, they know who I am by name, know my address, po box, etc.

I'm sure UPS stores are just like post offices individually. Some will inevitably suck no matter what. The post office I used to go to in Redmone WA, was HORRIBLE. Not because people were jerks. The building was just too small. I think they only had space for 5 clerks at the counter, and it was just a busy post office in a place where the population had exploded. If you went in on a luch break you'd be there for an hour. It was usually faster to drive to post office further away.