Comments on: Things I don’t understand: USPS

By: John Costello

John Costello — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 15:59:39 +0000

FedEx and UPS can’t compete on mail delivery anyway, because USPS basically has to deliver to every rural house in the entire US.

In many places, UPS / FedEx rely on USPS for last-mile delivery — they deliver things all the way up to their closest distribution center, walk it over to the post office, and toss it in.

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:34:49 +0000

I can tell you why UPS and FedEx are getting the business and not USPS.

I have been shipping with FedEx because my company shipped internationally, and they are business documents that have to go through the authentication, notary and the State Department so we don’t just toss it into the mail and hope that they get there in one piece.

FedEx and UPS will give a confirmation number that you can track online. USPS will give you a number also, but it only tells you something like, “in transit.”

Not only that, using USPS print and ship, and you will find out how many times they double charged your account and won’t refund you for up to 6 weeks.

No thank you.

That’s why I use FedEx or UPS.

By: bion

bion — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:35:35 +0000

What’s with the range of shipping rates? I can ship a package by Thursday for anywhere from $6.15 to $54.60?

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:34:20 +0000

Everyone but USPS offers package tracking. USPS will only eventually tell you if it was delivered. To Amazon, NewEgg, Ebay, and their customers, that’s a feature worth a non-trivial amount.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:11:44 +0000

I don’t know if for a fact, but I’ve heard that USPS subsidizes its mail through junk mail (bulk and local advertisements).

It could also easily be something like, USPS subsidizes its small, consumer-level shipping by some other means, like (I’m just guessing) charging more for commercial customers, or using government money / tax breaks / whatever. Not to mention the low-cost benefits a government-forced monopoly gets.

I am impressed by their international shipping rates. I’m able to send a large delivery envelope to Europe in under a week for like $10-20.

By: James

James — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:04:56 +0000

All that, and USPS is closing over half it’s processing centers and killing overnight first-class mail in May.