USPS Holiday shipping results?

[Gary]

We are interested in the experience that others have had this December using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Larry Bohen]

Gary; We have used USPS to ship audiobooks to customers around the world
since 1994 and are satisified with their delivery record which is not
perfect, but none of the carriers are. We have not noticed any degration in
USPS delivery service this December. Customers get more anxious and will
call or email more often during December.

The advantages of USPS (for us) are:

1. They are very close to us.

2. They deliver to PO boxes.

3. They deliver on Saturdays (Media Mail, Priority & Express) and Sundays
(Express) without extra charge. Express Mail will ever get delivered
(domestically) on Christmas day.

4. Their costs are very competitive.

Improvements I would like to see in USPS:

1. Currently, for international shipments, USPS transfers shipments to
different delivery agents in each country. USPS Express Mail tracking stops
once a shipment leaves the US. UPS and FedEx and perhaps Airborne handle a
shipment from start to finish. This allows tracking to the customer. The UPS
and FedEx pickup to delivery process allows complete tracking and I suspect
smoother / faster loss/damage claims.

2. USPS has lots of forms (insurance, customs, registered). I would like to
see a simpler one form for all.

We plan on implementing the Endicia / Dazzle system (only for USPS) next
year which integrates well with Stone Edge's Order Manager.

--
Larry Bohen
www.audiobooksonline.com
"Gary" <glb2@poboxes.com> wrote in message
news:doh48k$3ub$1@eval.shopsite.com...

We are interested in the experience that others have had this December
using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better
delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Rodney]

I agree with Larry. I've been using USPS since 1996 to ship t-shirts that
I've sold online. Overall, I'd highly recommend them for small packages.

I've starting using stamps.com in combination with USPS, and the ease of
data entry, printing shipping labels, having customers get email
notifications of delivery and free delivery confirmation make it pretty hard
to pass up.

"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> wrote in message
news:dohbag$7ds$1@eval.shopsite.com...

Gary; We have used USPS to ship audiobooks to customers around the world
since 1994 and are satisified with their delivery record which is not
perfect, but none of the carriers are. We have not noticed any degration
in USPS delivery service this December. Customers get more anxious and
will call or email more often during December.

[Brandon Eley]

A lot of the packages we sent out USPS Priority 2-3 day took 5-6 days to
arrive this year, which is unacceptable in my opinion. It was a small
number of packages, but overall mail seemed to move slower this year.

Gary wrote:

We are interested in the experience that others have had this December using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Don Lundell]

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 06:04:36 -0800, Brandon Eley <brandon@eleytech.com> wrote:

A lot of the packages we sent out USPS Priority 2-3 day took 5-6 days to
arrive this year, which is unacceptable in my opinion. It was a small
number of packages, but overall mail seemed to move slower this year.

Same here - we had a couple of Priority packages that took about 10 days..

- dc

[Chris]

We agree.

We had a number of problems with Priority Mail this holiday season. Some took over
2 weeks to arrive.

Chris
mlcswoodworking.com

Brandon Eley wrote:

A lot of the packages we sent out USPS Priority 2-3 day took 5-6 days to
arrive this year, which is unacceptable in my opinion. It was a small
number of packages, but overall mail seemed to move slower this year.

Gary wrote:
We are interested in the experience that others have had this December using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Jim]

Maybe they really do need the 5+ percent pay hike that they are putting
into effect next week. ;-(

Is there any recourse that you have with USPS?

Jim

Chris wrote:

We agree.

We had a number of problems with Priority Mail this holiday season. Some took over
2 weeks to arrive.

Chris
mlcswoodworking.com

Brandon Eley wrote:

A lot of the packages we sent out USPS Priority 2-3 day took 5-6 days to
arrive this year, which is unacceptable in my opinion. It was a small
number of packages, but overall mail seemed to move slower this year.

Gary wrote:
We are interested in the experience that others have had this December using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Larry Bohen]

Gary; I am curious if you came to any conclusions regarding carriers other
than USPS.

We are becoming increasingly more intolerant with the poor or no delivery of
non-USA orders caused by USPS using local delivery agents. I would prefer to
ship international with a shipper that performs the whole process (picksup
from us and delivers to the customer).

--
Larry Bohen
www.audiobooksonline.com

"Gary" <glb2@poboxes.com> wrote in message
news:doh48k$3ub$1@eval.shopsite.com...

We are interested in the experience that others have had this December
using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better
delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com

[Webmaster - Dave's Discou]

Though the price is higher than USPS, reliable door-to-door international
delivery with DHL is significantly cheaper than Fedex or UPS.
We use them regularly and have been pleased with the results.

"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> wrote in message
news:dronir$s3p$1@eval.shopsite.com...

Gary; I am curious if you came to any conclusions regarding carriers other
than USPS.

We are becoming increasingly more intolerant with the poor or no delivery
of non-USA orders caused by USPS using local delivery agents. I would
prefer to ship international with a shipper that performs the whole
process (picksup from us and delivers to the customer).

--
Larry Bohen
www.audiobooksonline.com

"Gary" <glb2@poboxes.com> wrote in message
news:doh48k$3ub$1@eval.shopsite.com...
We are interested in the experience that others have had this December
using
USPS Priority and Express shipping. Good, bad, or?

We are also interested in any suggestions for any service you might
recommend (FedEx, DHL, or UPS) and whether we should expect better
delivery
results compared to USPS that would merit the extra cost.

Most of our shipments are <5# and domestic.

Thanks

Gary
Freebears.com