I think I may have some idea why the USPS has trouble making money.
The following is the tracking info on a package which I haven’t received yet.
Palisade is about five miles from Grand Junction. Note that the package was in Palisade on the 8th then was sent on a 600 mile round trip for some unknown reason.
There may be a logical reason for all of this but it escapes me.
Maybe Fed X is the real culprit but they make money and this would be out of character for them…
Track your package
Date Time Location Event Details
July 11, 2011 02:11:00 PM Palisade CO US Arrival Scan
July 9, 2011 07:27:00 AM Grand Junction CO US Departure Scan
July 9, 2011 07:27:00 AM Grand Junction CO US In transit to pickup location
July 9, 2011 07:21:00 AM Grand Junction CO US Arrival Scan
July 8, 2011 08:46:32 PM Henderson CO US Departure Scan
July 8, 2011 07:48:00 PM Henderson CO US Arrival Scan
July 8, 2011 05:47:33 PM Fedex Smartpost Denver CO US Departure Scan
July 8, 2011 05:47:00 PM Fedex Smartpost Denver CO US In transit to pickup location
July 8, 2011 12:51:00 PM Palisade CO US Arrival Scan
July 7, 2011 08:57:00 PM Fedex Smartpost Denver CO US Arrival Scan
July 6, 2011 03:54:00 PM Hebron KY Departure Scan
July 6, 2011 12:21:54 PM Hebron KY Arrival Scan
July 6, 2011 02:07:00 AM US Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit
Unless I’m reading the tacking wrong, it looks like FedEx is the company that sent your package on the extra trip. I know that almost every FedEx package goes through the super hub in TN even if it’s just going to the next town over so maybe that’s it?
And as to the USPS having trouble making money, blame Congress, not the USPS. (onto soapbox)
The company that knows what it costs to run its business (USPS) is told what rates they will charge to fund it (Congress). The USPS is not subsidized by taxes but is supposed to cover it’s operating costs from sales of its goods–but is then told it can’t charge what it needs to! Your government at work
(/soapbox)
Since USPS is a monopoly – given that status by federal legislation – it does make sense for the Congress to set its rates so that it does not abuse the monopoly position. And, when setting rates like that, it’s very hard to set them at exactly the point where the USPS has neither a surplus or deficit, especially where a market is changing rapidly.
As I understand FedEx SmartPost, the package is in the FedEx system until they drop it off at your local post office, for final delivery by your mail carrier. So it’s not the USPS that’s bouncing it around the country.
Except that USPS goes to Congress and tells them how much money they need and Congress scratches its collective behind and refuses to allow the fees charged to be able to cover costs. I’ll go along with Congressional oversight due to the semi-monopoly* situation but for Congress to require them to operate at a deficit is untenable.
*=I say “semi-monopoly” due to the fact that there are other companies you can go to to deliver a package or a letter. Note the cost difference if you do so, though.
If I mail something to an address here in town (drop it in the Local slot at the post office), it goes to a town 30 miles away for processing. Makes no sense to me.
Something else that doesn’t make sense – postal carriers in the next town over are being told to drive 30 miles to pick up their mail, then drive back and deliver it. How is it efficient to have 20 carriers all driving their private cars (and presumably being reimbursed for mileage) rather than have one truck bring the mail to town?
That’s weird. I’ve never had a problem with the USPS. Well, scratch that. They tend to deliver packages too quickly. I ordered an air conditioner to be delivered based on the estimated delivery time given for USPS packages and then we went out of town the next day. It took them 12 hours to get the unit from the store to our door and they had to deliver a second time because we had no idea to expect them to get there so quickly. When I mail in my rent payment my check is always cashed within 24 hours of being put in the mailbox so they are also delivering regular mail at a speed that is almost frightening.
In comparison with my experiences with FedEx (who tend to make “attempts” at delivery, meaning they said they would be there to deliver the package and never arrived) and the number of people who complain that UPS doesn’t even bother to knock to deliver a package and instead just sticks a post-it on their door to advise of an attempted delivery it is almost as though the USPS is run by super geniuses or something.
FedEx SmartPost operates on a bizarre logic that defies any easy explanation, and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the normal USPS and FedEx Ground processes. Looking at SmartPost tracking is almost always guaranteed to baffle. All I can tell you is that shipments are consolidated at a mere 26 hubs before being sent to local USPS sorting hubs. Whatever the logic is behind the system, it usually comes out being cheaper and taking longer than regular FedEx Ground. That’s a useful trade-off for some shippers and it also allows them to use their FedEx software to ship to PO boxes.
I don’t know, dudes, but for what we pay in postage I think USPS does a fantastic job. No doubt things can always be tweaked and improved but they still do a good job.
Pretty much, yeah. Except for when I lived in Chicago, which has a notoriously bad postal service, I’ve never had any trouble with the USPS. Drop something in the mail and be assured of a reasonably timely arrival anywhere in the country, for a small fee? (And if you don’t think the fee is small, you should check out the postage charged by a lot of other countries.) Sounds pretty good to me.
And yeah, if you want an answer to why the USPS is having trouble, it’s not because some packages are taking an extra hop through the FedEx system. It’s due to the digital revolution combined with the fact that Congress is forcing them to operate at a deficit.
That hasn’t been true in a fair number of years. There are a few regional superhubs now. Your point still stands though, it will go through a superhub of some kind even if it is going down the street.
I haven’t bitched much about the USPS since I started mailing things to Canada. It takes a day to get to the border station… and two weeks to get to Montreal, about 50 miles away.
It’s a concept called “efficiency.”. It makes far more sense to process all mail in one location than in a hundred. Your mail is processed with mail that goes to all locations. One truck picks it up from many post offices and brings the sorted mail back. It requires fewer workers at your own post office and means they only need enough people to staff the windows.
I understand how that would be efficient for most places.
I should have given more information. My town has a population of 168. We don’t have mail delivery – we pick up our mail at the post office. There’s one employee, who says it takes her 20 minutes to sort and distribute both the ingoing and outgoing mail. The rest of the day she’s selling a few stamps, scanning packages, etc. But she’s not allowed to postmark my letter and put it in the recipient’s mailbox.
I think the post office is doing a great job, but I can see where they could be more adaptable, not have the same processes for all locations.
I’ve been doing a ton of mailing the past few years, both sending packages and receiving. I’ve been astounded at the efficiency of the USPS. I send a DVD from Kansas City to Chicago in a padded envelope First Class and it frequently gets there the next day.
The USPS is a model of efficiency. No private company could provide the service for a lower cost, nor does any want to. The demand is now minimal, and higher postage costs would drop it to nearly 0. We should be concerned with how long we can maintain this anachronism.
Absolutely. It will be a sad, sad day when the USPS is forced to close up shop. It’s possibly the greatest bargain in the history of mankind: they’ll send an envelope practically anywhere for less change than most of us probably have in our pockets right now.
Look at the scans around the point in question. The package would have to appear in Palisade without a Denver departure scan, then teleport back to Denver without a transit scan at either point so it could depart again. The July 8 Palisade arrival claim is clearly in error. I suspect one of the software systems involved is trying to look good by creating fantasy progress records - if that’s the fault of USPS or of FedEx, who knows.
In my local postoffice, the clerk will do exactly that, but our town is so much bigger – 10,000 residents. Nevertheless, unless the mail is handed over to the clerk, all other mail goes to a central sorting station about 50 miles away. Some of it must come back.
It may seem inefficient to you, but efficiency has to take into consideration many factors such as labor, transportation costs, and timing.
Example: Federal Express began their overnight package delivery by ignoring the destination address of a pickup, sending everything to a single sorting facility in Memphis, then flying out of Memphis to the destination. What they spent in transportation costs they gained in speed and the use of very fast sorting equipment. Instead of multiple sorts, each one holding up the next, they reduced the workflow to a single major sort at a single location.
As FedEx has grown, they have been able to implement extremely sophisticated routing systems and have multiple transport points, but that would not have been possible years ago.