USPS Parcel Post: When you really don’t care when it gets there!

Doc_J

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Bought a custom uke from a US luthier on 12/12 from the other side of the country. The luthier had ‘Standard Shipping’ with delivery in 3-7 days. Cool, I figured to have it in a week. Would you believe it was sent USPS Parcel Post? Crap! The uke has spent the last 11 days in purgatory at the USPS.

Even though today is 12/23, the USPS “tracking” system still shows the ‘expected delivery date’ as Wed 12/20. My local post master stated that package should never have been sent via Parcel Post so close to Christmas “if you wanted it to arrive before Christmas,” despite what the USPS Christmas mailing guidelines say and what the USPS shipping computer system estimates for delivery.

My post master suggested using Parcel Post only when ‘you do not care when a package will arrive’ and guesses my package is stuck at a Bulk Mail Center and could take several days to be sorted, queued, and trucked to the next BMC before going to my PO. The postmaster also said miracles happen and it could possibly be delivered by tomorrow, but doubted it. I appreciated the post master's honesty, but I am disappointed with the USPS. Seems like they might anticipate Christmas mail volume increases after 235 years of operation. The USPS should not give bogus delivery estimates to shippers who don't recognize it as crap.

So remember, sending a package via USPS Parcel Post says to your customer, “I don’t care when you get this.”
 
Bought a custom uke from a US luthier on 12/12 from the other side of the country. The luthier had ‘Standard Shipping’ with delivery in 3-7 days. Cool, I figured to have it in a week. Would you believe it was sent USPS Parcel Post? Crap! The uke has spent the last 11 days in purgatory at the USPS.

Even though today is 12/23, the USPS “tracking” system still shows the ‘expected delivery date’ as Wed 12/20. My local post master stated that package should never have been sent via Parcel Post so close to Christmas “if you wanted it to arrive before Christmas,” despite what the USPS Christmas mailing guidelines say and what the USPS shipping computer system estimates for delivery.

My post master suggested using Parcel Post only when ‘you do not care when a package will arrive’ and guesses my package is stuck at a Bulk Mail Center and could take several days to be sorted, queued, and trucked to the next BMC before going to my PO. The postmaster also said miracles happen and it could possibly be delivered by tomorrow, but doubted it. I appreciated the post master's honesty, but I am disappointed with the USPS. Seems like they might anticipate Christmas mail volume increases after 235 years of operation. The USPS should not give bogus delivery estimates to shippers who don't recognize it as crap.

So remember, sending a package via USPS Parcel Post says to your customer, “I don’t care when you get this.”

Yeah, and they wonder why they keep running in the red... :) Sorry about your uke situation, though. Last year my wife was visiting her parents in another state when she ran out of her medication. They live two miles from an international airport, and about a six-hour drive from where I live in the DFW metroplex. My local PO informed me that they didn't offer overnight service to that "remote" city and the best they could guarantee was three-day delivery. Golly, FedEx got my business, imagine that!
 
Never, ever ship anything you care about via Parcel Post. It is intended for heavy, bulky and low valued items such as books and the like where time is not an issue. I have the majority of my cases shipped this way because it is a very good value. Average delivery time for Parcel Post from the Mainland to Hawaii is six to eight weeks.
 
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