tcphoto wrote

The USPS should be allowed to die, it is inefficient and propped up only because it's a Government Entity. Notice how the tracking system is vague when you attempt to track a package? I ordered a video mic last week out of NY, it made it's way to LA before finally being delivered in Nashville ten days later. Let it die, let a private company do it better because how much do you use it anyway? I think 2-3 days of service a week is all that's needed, at least for residential service.

They can't go out of business. They're United States Postal Service.

Pensions.

I'm finding Fedex to be terrible lately.
On occasion I get an important letter I have to sign for. The computer says they delivered it, but they didn't. I'll find it the next day, in the lobby.
Twice.

Murf

Here is an example from this past week. I ordered an item and notice that it originated in NY, traveled to LA before arriving in Nashville.

tcphoto wrote

Here is an example from this past week. I ordered an item and notice that it originated in NY, traveled to LA before arriving in Nashville.

Absolutely no logic in stuff touring the U.S. before getting where it is going. Efficiency at its finest!

I dread having anything delivered by the USPS. This thread tells us the exact reasons why lol. By far the worst out of all the carriers.

tcphoto wrote

Here is an example from this past week. I ordered an item and notice that it originated in NY, traveled to LA before arriving in Nashville.

Yup looks exactly like my packages that get shipped USPS. Then after the thing finishes it's cross country tour, the boxes usually arrive looking like they were dragged behind the truck the entire way. Doesn't help that the woman behind the counter of the local post office has been working there 40 years too long, and anytime you go in she acts like she is doing you a huge favor. I have a 16 year old Border Collie who spends most of the day sleeping on the porch, and probably couldn't chase the mail truck if he wanted to. The mail woman now has this sudden fear of dogs, and anytime there is more than one package she just drives right by the house and marks the package as "dog interference", so I have to drive to the office and get it. I've seen her do this as I'm outside mowing the lawn, just drives right by even if the dog is inside and nowhere to be seen.


I've had similar experiences with FedEx as LittleBear. Tracking says it has been delivered then I don't see it for 1-2 more days. I'm thinking maybe this is the employees trying to boost their metrics?

UPS seems to be the most consistent, at least in my area.

They just suck, in every way. I've spent $40K with them in the last 10 years, and it matters not, I'm treated just like everyone else; terribly.

Had many delays with them recently as well

I have a set of trim coming from Lithuania that was shipped 3/20 and has been sitting in customs in Chicago since April 9th. Every postal entity that I’ve been able to contact (difficult within itself) has provided no support

Max

I keep on having the same issue with Amazon-

Item ordered on Wednesday... due to arrive next Tuesday... Sunday arrives still not shipped, ships Monday morning and arrives on Tuesday.

Do they sit on orders that long before anyone gets around to it?

tcphoto wrote

The USPS should be allowed to die, it is inefficient and propped up only because it's a Government Entity. Notice how the tracking system is vague when you attempt to track a package? I ordered a video mic last week out of NY, it made it's way to LA before finally being delivered in Nashville ten days later. Let it die, let a private company do it better because how much do you use it anyway? I think 2-3 days of service a week is all that's needed, at least for residential service.

Agree with this 100%. I mean, I seriously do not need junk mail delivered to my house daily. I could stand having the useless bullshit that the USPS delivers to my house 2 days a week rather than 5.....or even better, only send me my bills in the mail. I might get 2 bills a week, but yet countless other bullshit. I can't wrap my mind around why, in this day and age, that people still try to sell their wares/services via mass mailers. Waste of paper, ink/toner, postage etc. only to be tossed in the trash and never even looked at by 97.38763% of the recipients.

I ordered face masks from Amazon when we were told that we would be required to wear them at work. This was over a month ago. Still don't have the masks. I ordered the same masks from ebay last Monday, they were delivered Saturday. Updated ETA on the masks from Amazon May 29th to June 19th now.

ASAP wrote

I keep on having the same issue with Amazon-

Item ordered on Wednesday... due to arrive next Tuesday... Sunday arrives still not shipped, ships Monday morning and arrives on Tuesday.

Do they sit on orders that long before anyone gets around to it?

Sometimes I think the sell stuff before they have it in stock and if there is a delay it trickles down. Also, Amazon seems to have (at least) 3 levels of distribution - products they sell, products third parties sell but Amazon fulfills the order and those sold and fulfilled by third parties. If Amazon isn’t selling it, my experience is that shipments and return / refund quality is lower.

My bigger gripe with Amazon these days is allowing sellers to sell items at 2, 3, 4 or more times higher than normal prices. No way they don’t know about it or have a way to manage it.

Now_Rudi wrote

Agree with this 100%. I mean, I seriously do not need junk mail delivered to my house daily. I could stand having the useless bullshit that the USPS delivers to my house 2 days a week rather than 5.....or even better, only send me my bills in the mail. I might get 2 bills a week, but yet countless other bullshit. I can't wrap my mind around why, in this day and age, that people still try to sell their wares/services via mass mailers. Waste of paper, ink/toner, postage etc. only to be tossed in the trash and never even looked at by 97.38763% of the recipients.

Junk mail is the only reason they are still around. About half of everything they handle is junk mail, and more than half of their revenue comes from it. In 2012 they had to dramatically increase the amount of junk just to keep from going under.

“Total mail volume First-Class in 2010 was 78.2 billion pieces,” he said, "while... Advertising Mail, was 82.5 billion pieces." [2011]

"Faced with multibillion-dollar losses and significant declines in first-class mail, the post office is cutting deals with businesses and direct mail marketers to increase the number of sales pitches they send by standard mail, the official term the agency uses for what is less kindly referred to as junk mail... About 48 percent of the mail is advertising appeals, according to Postal Service data. Last year, Americans received about 84 billion pieces of junk mail." [2012]

https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-junk-mail-is-helping-to-prop-up-the-postal-service/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/business/seeking-revenue-postal-service-plans-to-deliver-more-junk-mail.html

“Standard mail is the best way to reach your customer,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, the postmaster general, during a presentation last month on the future of the post office. “You can advertise on Facebook, but I don’t see how you can trace the number of ‘likes’ to return on investment.”

I'll bet email is just a fad, too. Let them die already.

I usually have no problems with usps but recently had a package that was tracking nicely from Minnesota to New Jersey, then it just stopped for 14 days. When I called about it they said it was due to lots of employees being out due to covid in some facilities. 2 days after my call it started moving again and 3 days later I had my package.

I can't really be mad at them though in these weird times.

We had something my wife ordered that was supposed to be delivered yesterday evening. I actually passed the mail truck as I was turning into the neighborhood.

She looked it up and it said they attempted delivery at 7:21pm.....but could not locate the house and needed more information.

Granted it wasn't our regular mail person, but we have lived there for 15 years and the street number is on our box and porch....easy to read.

So not sure what's up with that.

Now our regular mailman.....he's cool as can be. I have known him for years and he goes out of his way to make sure we get our stuff and he treats us good.

But we also give him a Christmas Card each year with a little gift so maybe that helps!

Rmtt wrote

We had something my wife ordered that was supposed to be delivered yesterday evening. I actually passed the mail truck as I was turning into the neighborhood.

She looked it up and it said they attempted delivery at 7:21pm.....but could not locate the house and needed more information.

Granted it wasn't our regular mail person, but we have lived there for 15 years and the street number is on our box and porch....easy to read.

So not sure what's up with that.

Now our regular mailman.....he's cool as can be. I have known him for years and he goes out of his way to make sure we get our stuff and he treats us good.

But we also give him a Christmas Card each year with a little gift so maybe that helps!

Our previous mailman was awesome and we did the same - Christmas card with some cash. If we weren't home when there was a package, he would go around back, leave it on the patio and leave a note with our mail in the box. But he also carried the mail with him when we had a package and handed it to us if we were home to save us a trip to the mailbox. Little things...

Unfortunately, he retired a couple of years ago. Now, we get boxes thrown somewhere near the front door, never bring the mail up with boxes since they never ring the doorbell, no hello / pleasantries, etc. Same for UPS - original driver was a great guy. Now they throw packages somewhere near the front door and never ring the bell to let us know something's out there.

RickFLM4 wrote

ASAP wrote

I keep on having the same issue with Amazon-

Item ordered on Wednesday... due to arrive next Tuesday... Sunday arrives still not shipped, ships Monday morning and arrives on Tuesday.

Do they sit on orders that long before anyone gets around to it?

Sometimes I think the sell stuff before they have it in stock and if there is a delay it trickles down. Also, Amazon seems to have (at least) 3 levels of distribution - products they sell, products third parties sell but Amazon fulfills the order and those sold and fulfilled by third parties. If Amazon isn’t selling it, my experience is that shipments and return / refund quality is lower.

My bigger gripe with Amazon these days is allowing sellers to sell items at 2, 3, 4 or more times higher than normal prices. No way they don’t know about it or have a way to manage it.

I feel for obvious reasona that if you are not scenario 1... you shouldnt be marked as a Prime item.

PINeely wrote

Junk mail is the only reason they are still around. About half of everything they handle is junk mail, and more than half of their revenue comes from it. In 2012 they had to dramatically increase the amount of junk just to keep from going under.






https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-junk-mail-is-helping-to-prop-up-the-postal-service/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/business/seeking-revenue-postal-service-plans-to-deliver-more-junk-mail.html



I'll bet email is just a fad, too. Let them die already.

I might be showing my lack of understanding here, and if that is the case and someone comes along to enlighten me; I'm all for it. How do they track ROI on mass mailing "Advertising appeals?" How are they to determine out of X number of direct mailers that X amount of customers bought what they are selling and how do they determine that X amount of sales were brought in from their mailers?

"Machine gun" tactics work, but in the percentages, it's a very low number; but what is the number? If I fire 100 bullets and 10 hit the mark, how much did the ammo cost compared to the amount of profit I stand to make?

Also not a fan of their terminology. Advertising appeals makes it sound like such a compelling offer to be hood-winked via mail. When I was in sales/marketing, they were referred to as Direct Mail Pieces....I hated them then too. Not once, in my 7 years of sales and marketing with one particular company, did I or any of my employees connect a sale with any of the mailers that we sent out. We kept track of them because I hated doing them. My boss told me to do it anyway and if we never saw a direct correlation that we could stop. We stopped alright, but without his permission. I'm amazed he didn't ask to do cold calls as well.

I'm trying to remember if I have ever gotten something in the mail that influenced my buying decision. Does anyone here go in to their junk mail folder in their email to see what goodness is trying to be sold to them?

ASAP wrote

I feel for obvious reasona that if you are not scenario 1... you shouldnt be marked as a Prime item.

I agree but think 1 or 2 can be marked as Prime.

Yikes I didn't realize USPS was giving everyone so much grief.

I thought waiting a month and a half for a package to pass through the international exchange center in Italy was unimaginable, but you folks make it seem like just another day.

USPS is something else. I was just there to send some titles to the DMV and the bitch working the front desk refused to allow me to send 3 pieces of folded paper in a stamped envelope. I didn't have any stamps at home so went there to have the crap mailed, she said the only way to do it is a large envelope with padding for like $5. I told her put in and regular envelope and send the freaking thing don't need the padding. She went on to say the papers are too large for regular envelope (3 small pieces) and she just starts ringing up 2 large envelopes and went on to accuse me of lying to her about how the DMV needs a return envelope to send the stuff back, so now I need TWO of these fucking things for like $10. I asked her if she worked at the DMV part time and knew for sure how that works? Because I definitely just talked to a clerk and they said just send titles and will mail them back. She didn't like that and tried to move me to the back of the line for "causing a scene." I never raised my voice and was just fucking with her, but forgot these people have no sense of humor.

Ended up shipping the thing like I told her to for 75 cents and told her to lighten up as I pulled my card out of chip reader. I ordered a roll of stamps on my phone as soon as I got back to my car to never deal with that shit again.

Hope they fail.