Postal rates making me go postal!

[NickC]

Try living in Canada and buying stuff from the States like I do. Your $6.50 Priority mail goes to about $25 for me.
If I buy a 4 lb transformer from Chicago for $60 it costs me $50 to get it to me.

Going the other way, from Canada into the States, a simple letter is $1.20 CDN ($0.85 US at current exchange).

I mailed a friend in Toronto a custom made 8-channel, 25 foot snake for a recording system. It fit into a "Priority" size flat-rate box, but still cost me $35 USD to have delivered. I don't do international shipping any more.

[John_P_WI]

Or look at the reverse like David mentioned. I order a lot of stuff from Asia (ok no wife jokes....) and for a 3 dollar packet the shipping is free to the US with the final delivery provided by USPS!

I just bought an additional cheap DMM from Franky in HK for a dc power project I have been working on. Free shipping and tracking on a 50 dollar DMM, arrived in Chicago in 3 days then took 11 days to go from Chicago's USPS distribution center to my residence in Wisconsin

A lot of this just doesn't make sense.

[Teleguy61]

USPS is caught in a no-win loop.
Falling revenue from reduced volume has caused huge loses, that must be countered by reductions in service, that causes falling revenue from reduced volume, that must.........
Not that I am particularly sympathetic. I live in eastern MA, where my mail service has gone from excellent to mediocre and sometimes downright unreliable.

[Ken Moon]

What is the deal with Canada?

I thought the NAFTA treaty was supposed to prevent stupid border stuff, but it obviously didn't work.

My wife works with RBC bank in Canada, and they did a test, sending 10 plain envelopes to 10 people in the same building in Toronto via USPS/Canada Post.

One letter got through in 4 days, 2 weeks was average, and two took over a month.

At least I haven't been hit with the dreaded "custom broker fee" lately

[Scumback Speakers]

USPS went way up on Priority Mail last week. Some went up over 20%, the bulk of what I ship went up 16%. This is including their huge 5% discount, LOL.

The only thing they did for the 20% plus increase was include insurance up to $200, which used to cost $3.50...but that hardly cost justified an increase from $74 to $93.

If the cost wasn't still cheaper than UPS or Fedex for non USA shipments, I'd be kicking them to the curb, making sure they were unable to move and then driving the bus over them myself...just for the satisfaction of doing it.

But I'm not bitter...really.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Meanwhile . . . the folks that work at my local PO and do the deliveries, can't say enough good about them.

As usual the mayhem is brought to us by the brass hats & politicians.

[Colossal]

brass hats & politicians.

I think you meant Ass Hats, Leo.

[drew]

Or look at the reverse like David mentioned. I order a lot of stuff from Asia (ok no wife jokes....) and for a 3 dollar packet the shipping is free to the US with the final delivery provided by USPS!

I just bought an additional cheap DMM from Franky in HK for a dc power project I have been working on. Free shipping and tracking on a 50 dollar DMM, arrived in Chicago in 3 days then took 11 days to go from Chicago's USPS distribution center to my residence in Wisconsin

A lot of this just doesn't make sense.

It's simply a matter of the Chinese government subsidizing shipping for international parcels in order to promote trade.

Meanwhile, in America, the GOP has been trying to bleed the Postal Service to death, enacting legislation in 2006 requiring it to pre-fund the equivalent of 75 years worth of pension liabilities within ten years. That's why we've seen rate increase after rate increase.

[John_P_WI]

Interesting, thanks Drew.

[Structo]

I had USPS deliver an Amazon order yesterday.

Sunday.

[Ken Moon]

As part of their "last mile" service, they do deliver to residences on Sundays. It was pretty strange the first time I saw USPS delivery jeeps out on a Sunday!

I'm getting more and more Amazon Prime shipments that use UPS city to city, then USPS' last mile service for delivery. They've met Amazon's 2-day shipping at least 90% of the time IME, and the few delays were just one day.

[RWood]

Falling revenue from reduced volume has caused huge loses, that must be countered by reductions in service, that causes falling revenue from reduced volume, that must.........

Volume has never been higher for the USPS due to unprecedented increase in online shopping.

[vibratoking]

... I'm getting more and more Amazon Prime shipments that use UPS city to city, then USPS' last mile service for delivery. They've met Amazon's 2-day shipping at least 90% of the time IME, and the few delays were just one day.

That last mile service is corporate welfare. UPS, FedEx, and others can't find a sound business model to handle the last mile, but USPS has? I think I know who is paying for it. Just another example of corporate misuse of government funds.

[jaysg]

I too was caught unawares. I needed to ship a speaker to NYC and was absolutely appalled at the quotes. I went with FedEx...the only one under $30. From Jim's post, it doesn't sound like businesses are getting much of a break over retail customers.

[Teleguy61]

Hard to understand the huge increases when fuel costs, typically one of the main drivers of shipping cost increases, have fallen by 50%.