I find it is about the same as UPS ground. YMMV.
So was your mandating that it be a package greater than Priority mail. You picked a comparo where UPS has a slight edge, I picked one where USPS has a huge edge.
It works for you, but does it work for your customers?
I have always used Street addressing as I have a street address, not a PO box.
If the seller I am buying from refuses to ship USPS, I just pick another. I am not putting up with UPS’s lies and bullshit.
I’m not sure why they do that. They used to call me (the shipper) and try to figure out what to do with it. I would make some calls and we’d go from there. My website does it’s best to reject an address that it thinks has a PO Box in it, but sometimes people manage to finagle one in anyways. I wish the UPS Worldship software would do the same. It would save everyone a lot of headaches. My only guess for why UPS handles things the way they do is because they decided, from a financial point of view it’s the best way. Maybe the ran the numbers and found that less then half of the people had any kind of problem with it.
You have to remember, with a company as big as UPS for every vocal person that hates them, there’s probably a hundred that keep their month shut and thousands that have no problem whatsoever. IOW, I believe you and DrDeth when you say you’ve had horrible experiences, but you have to understand that the vast majority of the people haven’t had any problems at all with them. That’s going to be the case with virtually any large business. I receive stuff from them all the time and haven’t had a problem.
I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I’ll just respond by saying that when I went to the USPS site and tried to price out a shipment, Parcel Post wasn’t an option on the page. I had to hunt that down when you mentioned it.
So far, yes.
I’m going to be a nitpicking jerk here for a second, just to drive home a point. Street Addressing appears to be a new term coined by USPS for turning a PO BOX address into an address that appears to be a street address. It’s not a term for your physical address. I know people hate it when I get nitpicky, but not being nit picky is how mistakes get made and shipments go to wrong places. Funny, I get the feeling it IS going to be my job to know how to use (the royal) your PO Box.
I suppose we’ve just had different experiences. I haven’t had them lie to me as a shipper or receiver and don’t have any problem using them in either fashion. I don’t think I’ll be able to show you why UPS works better for me as a business and one person complaining about UPS certainly won’t get me to move to USPS.
Forgot to address this earlier. So that means it will cost only a little bit more then what I pay when I use my business account (UPS) so as far as cost we’re back to being more or less even (unless there’s discounts for setting up a business account). Which would then bring us back to all those other questions I asked.
Here Here.
Several years ago I started to refuse any UPS using companies. They suck. SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK!!!
The last time when I had to go into their service center and wait over an hour and the smartass smarmy UPS guy actually almost got punched in the face by me…I decided to stop.
USPS guys are slow and lazy but have little problems getting my stuff through them. I am seldom in a hurry…and even if I was USPS would be far faster after having to deal with UPS wasting my time.
As for Fed Ex? HELL NO! I’d rather deal with UPS.
Well, yes, I wholly agree with this. The vast majority of my own experiences with UPS have been entirely favorable.
I’m only mad at them because certain of their policies are harmful to me. I’m not judging them because Driver Joe dropped a fragile package once. I’m not judging them on the basis of accidents or events beyond their control. I’m steamed because they have delivered packages to my apartment door, said packages clearly addressed to my P.O. Box.
(I emailed them and complained, and got a nice phone call from someone, and they pretty much gave out the standard “non-answer” answers. I wasn’t satisfied, but, hey, I give them credit for making the effort to talk to me diplomatically. That’s a very good thing. They’re trying to be the best delivery company they can.)
(But I still hate 'em… :mad: )
OK, let’s talk about timely delivery. UPS WILL NOT make an effort to deliver my package to me. Instead, the drivers prefer to leave a note on my door. They don’t ring the doorbell, they don’t knock. They don’t even make the effort to get the package out of the truck. They just want to stick that note on the door, to tell me that they’ll make another “attempt” to deliver tomorrow, and after that, I can pick up my package at their service center. If my package contains very perishable stuff, I doubt that I’m going to want it when it’s spent two days in the delivery truck.
I don’t know HOW many times I’ve had UPS put a note on my door. I’d be up, and dressed, and in the living room (which is where the front door is) so that I could bounce up if the doorbell rang. And I’d check to see if the mail has come, and oh look! there’s one of UPS’s notes, saying that they attempted delivery.
Maybe it was just this one driver, who had my route for years and years. Maybe it’s just the way that this particular area UPS does things. But I would not want UPS delivering any perishable items to me.
Nope, same thing with me on three different routes. We had one really great driver. The rest have been into delivering notices, not packages. In fact, I honestly swear some play it as a game.
Receiver at home or business?
And, it’s not ONE person, this thread has many posters with the same complaint.
Ok, seven people like USPS, you’ve convinced me.
UPS not only has that note business. If you call them to tell them you want to pick it up at the office or if you want to change the delivery address to somewhere where there will be someone to receive the package, they need two days notice for it, because “it’s already on the truck.” (Well I’m on the phone with you now, so why don’t you go to the truck and get it? Nope, can’t do that. I’m nowhere near the truck, and even if I were, only the driver is allowed to do that. And he can’t do it until tomorrow night, after he’s done with his non-deliveries) And if you are picking up at UPS, they always just have one location, 40 miles away in the middle of nowhere; whereas, the Postal Service has a post office nearby, no matter where you are.
Well, look at it this way. The SDMB has a higher % of well read thinking people. Here, in this thread, 100% of those who are the end home receiver of packages have indicated serious problems with UPS. If that’s not enough to warn you of a potential issue, then you must think “customer service” is a contradiction in terms.
I don’t doubt that people have had bad experiences with all the different services.
But we ship between 3,000 and 15,000 packages per day (most to consumers) and I’m forming my opinion based on reliability problems associated with those shipments.
My original-post gripe wasn’t with UPS and FedEx for refusing to thip to my designated Street Address (i.e., PO Box alias); so far, when asked to do so, they’ve done so. It’s with various vendors who stop the transaction (or put it on indefinite pause) because THEIR system balks.
[QUOTE=Joey P]
According to a little bit of research that I did, it would actually be addressed
Dr Deth
150 Main St #1234
Anytown, CA 9000
[/quote]
I had some difficulty getting anyone either in person at the local post office or over the phone to give me the details on this new feature, which was simply included in the renewal flier that was stuck in my PO Box. When I did, I was told that
a) yes my post office supports it;
b) the address to use would be 150 Main Street, hard return, PO Box 1234.
But yes I have tried getting vendors to input it as
150 Main Street
Box 1234
150 Main Street #1234
150 Main Street
etc
In some cases their online system says "Our verysmart system has determined that a better version of the address you input is
PO Box 1234
click HERE to continue.
So instead I click “NO dammit, accept it the way I freaking input it”.
Then I get an email from them, “Your order has been put on a dusty back shelf until you correct your address, we don’t ship to PO boxes”.
:mad:
With all due respect, the UPS “we deliver post-it notes, not packages” kabuki dance that ends with the customer having to drive to the UPS depot wouldn’t manifest as a reliability problem. The customer gets his or her package, no doubt, but he/she “merely” has to pick it up him/herself rather than the shocking idea that the delivery company actually, umm, delivers it. :rolleyes:
Just because a package was reliably received, that doesn’t mean that the merchant/shipper didn’t end up with a black eye from the customer’s perspective. The last time I ordered something physical via the internet – a pair of shoes – I went through the whole rigamarole of three UPS notes, then driving to the depot at an inconvenient hour. I concluded that if I was going to have to drive somewhere to get my “conveniently shipped to your door!” shoes, I would just buy my next pair of shoes in a store. :smack:
Meh, I got an post it note thing the other day. I signed it, stuck it back on the door and had my package the next day. IIRC I also had the option to pick it up at the UPS place or have it delivered somewhere else.
Having said that…having to go and get your package from the UPS place isn’t all that much different from getting it from your PO Box and having it sit outside all day because UPS left it there (can’t win can they) isn’t any different from USPS leaving by your front door all day.
I know, I know, your UPS place made you wait 3 and half hours. But that’s your place. I’m lucky, mine isn’t busy and the few times that I’ve had to pick up at mine (and the fedex one for that matter) there were only a few people ahead of me and it only took a few minutes.
I think we’re at stalemate here. I haven’t had any horrible issues with UPS and no one else has had any good ones…or we’re all suffering from confirmation bias.
As I pointed out before, most people live pretty close to their post offices. But UPS tends to have a single office, often near an airport, which in any decent-sized city, is a long trek for most people in the area.
I’ll give you that one, I live across the street from the airport. I’ve really never given much thought to where the depot was (UPS and FedEx are both a five minute drive for me). But I think you can pick a day to schedule a new delivery or have it delivered somewhere else (though there might be a fee for that).
I have to go to the UPS place during their business hours. The Post Office boxes are available to me 24/7. This includes the large package delivery boxes. So if something doesn’t fit in my regular PO box, the PO worker puts a key to a large delivery box in my PO box. And I can pick up my package when it’s convenient for ME, without standing in line.
Now, I’ll grant you, I wouldn’t want perishables to be put in my PO box. However, I don’t want perishables to sit in a truck for two or three days, while the UPS guy plays “Gonna put sticky notes on the door and not ring the doorbell” with me. I’m likely to get a delivery to my PO box in a shorter period of time than a package from UPS, simply because when the package is in my PO box, I can pick it up immediately. If the package is on the UPS truck, I can’t pick it up until the UPS guy has done his game of putting sticky notes on my door, while avoiding me.
Guess who’s address verification database is used by UPS, FedEx and most address verification systems?
Yep, your address is getting corrected by USPS.
We hear about complaints like these - certainly not all, not everyone complains, probably most don’t complain, but we do get lots of feedback about things like this.