Anyone ship via US Postal Priority?

[stanward]

This is my first year for doing a computerized Christmas light show. I live in Hawaii, where the UPS/FedEx rates are out of this world.

So far, I have dealt with Action Lighting, Creative Displays Inc. and Light O Rama and TAW global (for my FM transmitter).

Action Lighting and Creative Displays did not want to ship via US Postal Service for me, so I had to opt for the very expensive UPS Ground. On the other hand, Light O Rama and TAW global shipped via US Postal Priority for me (thank you Dan from LOR).

Most of you guys probably don't care, as 99.9% of you are on the mainland US. But it makes a great big of a deal to us people in the 50th state.

Why can't mainland vendors ship via US Postal Service? The US Postal worker will even come to your door to pickup the item you are shipping out (all for free). You can receive up to a 10% discount if you do click n ship over the internet as well.

Stan

[compucard]

I just wanted to let you know that I understand your concern as to why so many vendors won't ship by usps to Hawaii however I own my own business and we don't offer usps as one of our main shipping options either for a couple of different reasons. The first reason is because they usually do not give you a tracking number for your shipment and number two is they lose the package and you have to go through the usps to find out if they are lost you will have to wait forever to get reimbursed for the product that they lose. We now will ship that way if the customer prefers however we explain that we don't guarantee that it will not get lost and if it does the customer has to duke it out with the us postal service to get refunded we don't.

http://www.lightsforchrist.net

[Dale W]

Our company has shipped to the islands too. For us, USPS is a huge hassle for the above mentioned reasons. I would much rather ship FedEx or UPS. However, they are not cost effective compared to the USPS.

That being said, having to deal with the USPS is not worth the time, effort, hassle for the small amount of profit that may be made on a sale.

I will, if requested by a client, ship USPS. But I will not guarantee anything - especially a timely delivery.

[garyfunk]

I ship by USPS and it couldn't be easier. I do everything online and I get tracking FREE. I insure every package and most of the time, it's cheaper than UPS. I can only guess the others haven't looked at shipping via USPS in about 10 years.l

[Dale W]

garyfunk wrote:

I ship by USPS and it couldn't be easier. I do everything online and I get tracking FREE. I insure every package and most of the time, it's cheaper than UPS. I can only guess the others haven't looked at shipping via USPS in about 10 years.l

Wait until you have to file a claim. It will be enough to scare you away forever.

Really! Forever!

Of all the thousands of shipments I have ever made, the only two that have been lost were by the USPS. Fortunately, both were insured. But it took 6 months to get paid - the USPS wanted to make sure things were good and lost.

With that, they lost my business.

[garyfunk]

I'm not here to make USPS happy. I have customers I care about. I am here to make them happy.

[stanward]

It hurts us to pay so much for shipping. And all of the time, we can't get the free shipping within the continental US.

I paid $80 to have one spool of SPT1 wire shipped to me from CDI.

Tracking is free if you do click n ship, and you can always opt for it if you stand in line at the post office.

I can see the sellers point of view of the hassle of using USPS. But I am on the other end of the stick where the shipping is so expensive, it governs the way I do my internet shopping. If a seller doesn't ship US Postal, especially on ebay, I rarely will do business with them.

Stan



garyfunk wrote:

I'm not here to make USPS happy. I have customers I care about. I am here to make them happy.

[David Balch]

I ship blowmolds via USPS Parcel Post to Hawaii - one person has bought several from me
Its actually cheaper to ship to Hawaii vs the west coast
But it can take 3-5 weeks to arrive

[stanward]

That's great! I am happy to hear for another person who is willing to go the extra mile to satisfy us Hawaii people!



David Balch wrote:

I ship blowmolds via USPS Parcel Post to Hawaii - one person has bought several from me
Its actually cheaper to ship to Hawaii vs the west coast
But it can take 3-5 weeks to arrive

[Robin]

USPS does offer tracking and as far as damages are concerned I understand the issue. But how many of you know that FEDEX actually has a contract to do a lot of the overnight and priority shipping for USPS?

I have some major damages with UPS. So much so that for years I had the phone number of the VP of operations. We were on a first name basis for a while. Let me tell you one thing for sure, when I called her (female at the time) within ten minutes the phone would ring off the hook with employees wanting to help.

How did I get her number? I was so ticked one day I just kept asking for the number of someone who could fire the person I was talking to. Eventually I was given her number.

[stanward]

Hello Robin,

I understand what you went through (on a smaller scale) with UPS. Actually, at my previous job, we went through a similar hurdle.

We opted for more insurance on a computer that was shipped from the mainland to Hawaii (our company NovaSol was both shipper and receiver). I think the computer cost around $10,000 (we are a DOD contractor and do a lot of engineering work for various corporations). Needless to say, we were never paid out for the damages incurred by FedEx (in our case, we exclusively used FedEx instead of UPS because of the volume discount. Our discount was so good, I got two automotive winches shipped from CA to Hawaii for less than half the actual cost).

FedEx even flew down an insurance adjuster rep from the mainland, very long story......

Stan