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USPS Delays

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Rod Dunlap

Rod Dunlap

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Albatross 2024 Club
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Location
Gilbert, AZ
For anyone shipping or receiving USPS shipments...

It's hard to believe but some USPS shipment delays may be worse than Christmas over the past couple years.

Just found a First Class shipment that's supposed to arrive today after 10 days in transit from Phoenix to Tucson.

We've had many more still sitting in a Phoenix hub after 7 days of receipt. Who knows if and when they'll ever get delivered.

Not sure if this is a nationwide thing but definitely no improvement with First Class or Priority Mail from previous years.
 
I’ve also experienced this lately, but maybe not to that degree of delay (10 days between Phoenix and Tucson?!?!?!)

Wonder if it’s related to the overall government budget situation and the “great resignation”… the IRS seems to also be way behind in processing last year’s tax returns piled up (e.g. 2020 returns) due to lack of manpower and not able to compete on wages with the private sector.
 
Frank559 said:
I’ve also experienced this lately, but maybe not to that degree of delay (10 days between Phoenix and Tucson?!?!?!)

Wonder if it’s related to the overall government budget situation and the “great resignation”… the IRS seems to also be way behind in processing last year’s tax returns piled up (e.g. 2020 returns) due to lack of manpower and not able to compete on wages with the private sector.
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Definitely could be part of the issue. Hopefully if Covid continues dying down, they'll get back on track.

For vendors it's really tough to ship with any other carriers for low weight items.
USPS is a third of the cost of UPS/FedEx for items under 1lb (even with deep volume discounts).
 
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I sent something out that has been delayed 1 day as of now and something else I am waiting for that's at least 4 days delayed.
 
10 days from PHX to Tucson. That's nuts
 
I find large packages (like golf club boxes) take forever through USPS, but smaller ones seem to go in relatively normal time. I actually spoke to a mail carrier about this and they said they have storage containers just filled with items that just sit there forever waiting to get scanned and sent to the next location, but they don't have enough people to do it, so they literally just sit there for days and days and days.
 
GolferGal said:
I find large packages (like golf club boxes) take forever through USPS, but smaller ones seem to go in relatively normal time. I actually spoke to a mail carrier about this and they said they have storage containers just filled with items that just sit there forever waiting to get scanned and sent to the next location, but they don't have enough people to do it, so they literally just sit there for days and days and days.
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Unfortunately this is happening with small shipments too. The 10 day delivery I was referring to from Phx to Tucson is a 3oz envelope with one of our gloves.
 
It's pretty awful and unfortunate.

The other issue is handling. I am often absolutely blown away at how poorly packages get handled in transit.
 
I know it's a thing now - it wasn't bad during the holidays but yes now it's really bad.

I know I was talking with @GolferGal about a large club box that took weeks. I know for me it wasn't the time since I'm covered in snow anyways but I just didn't want USPS to lose it, I don't have the faith that it won't fall behind something and get left there for eternity in a warehouse. =(

Even letters are taking longer right now, our family is loaded with birthdays in J-A so I've been sending cards like a week early and at least 2 have gotten there late and my parents sent me one that took an extra few days.
 
The other issue is USPS tracking. It's causing big customer service issues for a lot of us.

Our process goes like this. We process orders daily through Shipstation. Post office picks up bulk shipments from our logistics company.
We print an end of day form so the the postal worker doesn't have to scan each package. They bring the shipments to local terminal.
From that terminal there might not be another scan for 5-7 days with absolutely no tracking updates.

As expected, the customer calls or emails us saying I live in AZ or California or somewhere else close. What are you guys doing? You didn't ship the item.
We did but with no tracking updates there's nothing we can do but ship another.
 
Daluteh said:
I know it's a thing now - it wasn't bad during the holidays but yes now it's really bad.

I know I was talking with @GolferGal about a large club box that took weeks. I know for me it wasn't the time since I'm covered in snow anyways but I just didn't want USPS to lose it, I don't have the faith that it won't fall behind something and get left there for eternity in a warehouse. =(

Even letters are taking longer right now, our family is loaded with birthdays in J-A so I've been sending cards like a week early and at least 2 have gotten there late and my parents sent me one that took an extra few days.
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Was waiting on a club and Finally got someone at USPS to admit that long boxes like that do not work well in the scanners, so they have to be scanned by hand. They don't get to it, they just sit.....we'll get to them when we can
 
Rod Dunlap said:
The other issue is USPS tracking. It's causing big customer service issues for a lot of us.

Our process goes like this. We process orders daily through Shipstation. Post office picks up bulk shipments from our logistics company.
We print an end of day form so the the postal worker doesn't have to scan each package. They bring the shipments to local terminal.
From that terminal there might not be another scan for 5-7 days with absolutely no tracking updates.

As expected, the customer calls or emails us saying I live in AZ or California or somewhere else close. What are you guys doing? You didn't ship the item.
We did but with no tracking updates there's nothing we can do but ship another.
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That is what is tough from the consumer standpoint - we're so used to watching things go step by step on the internet when we see that it hasn't, we get worried. I'm guilty of doing the same thing, I'll contact customer service because 99 out of 100 times everything is above board and nothing wrong is happening just a delay but I've been burned by that 1 in 100 before where something doesn't get shipped or sent or the wrong things are sent and they tell you since you didn't contact them they are not responsible and blame it on another service.
 
Daluteh said:
That is what is tough from the consumer standpoint - we're so used to watching things go step by step on the internet when we see that it hasn't, we get worried. I'm guilty of doing the same thing, I'll contact customer service because 99 out of 100 times everything is above board and nothing wrong is happening just a delay but I've been burned by that 1 in 100 before where something doesn't get shipped or sent or the wrong things are sent and they tell you since you didn't contact them they are not responsible and blame it on another service.
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Totally understandable.

With UPS/FedEx at least you get real time updates but USPS you don't.

From a business standpoint, we'd be completely fine with a rate increase if it meant reasonable transit times and realistic tracking updates.
 
A few days here and there isn't terrible, considering the volumes that are being handled. I've found that LTL shipping (less than truckload) is even worse.
We shipped an order from CT to CA on 2/1/22.... ummmmm.... it's only in NY State. There is virtually no way possible for us to speed this up and the load is basically a hostage to the system at the moment. (doesn't matter what trucking company one uses, it's happening everywhere) No amount of communication is going to fix it, or relieve any anxiety over it.... As far as transportation goes... it's a miserable time to be a manufacturer/shipper of goods and i can't imagine the chaos goin on for the actual trucking companies.
 
NeverWiff said:
A few days here and there isn't terrible, considering the volumes that are being handled. I've found that LTL shipping (less than truckload) is even worse.
We shipped an order from CT to CA on 2/1/22.... ummmmm.... it's only in NY State. There is virtually no way possible for us to speed this up and the load is basically a hostage to the system at the moment. (doesn't matter what trucking company one uses, it's happening everywhere) No amount of communication is going to fix it, or relieve any anxiety over it.... As far as transportation goes... it's a miserable time to be a manufacturer/shipper of goods and i can't imagine the chaos goin on for the actual trucking companies.
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Yes, LTL can be terrible too. There's one that is far better than any other we've used but not sure about their rates. ArcBest/ABF.

We used to be able save quite a bit of money with bulk LTL shipments but 99% of the time our UPS rates are better now because LTL has gotten outrageous.
 
Rod Dunlap said:
Totally understandable.

With UPS/FedEx at least you get real time updates but USPS you don't.

From a business standpoint, we'd be completely fine with a rate increase if it meant reasonable transit times and realistic tracking updates.
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You mean you expect better service for a higher price from a Government agency?
 
My buddy works for USPS and has basically worked every day for the last 4 or 5 weeks. Yeah great he gets overtime but holy hell that must be exhausting.

And it's decent pay and benefits, but I guess maybe it's finding actually decent workers?
 
Iceman! said:
You mean you expect better service for a higher price from a Government agency?
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I'm saying delays like we're seeing from the USPS ain't all THAT bad, considering the mess i am seeing in the private sector delivery arena. Rate increases won't fix the current issues we're facing. We're getting pounded on pricing from private carriers and seeing no better results and in many cases, worse.
 
I sent a birthday card out on Monday, still hasn't gotten to destination that I've heard of yet. 4+ days to go Florida to Virginia. It shouldn't take that long to send anything across the US, yet alone just a few states.
 
NeverWiff said:
I'm saying delays like we're seeing from the USPS ain't all THAT bad, considering the mess i am seeing in the private sector delivery arena. Rate increases won't fix the current issues we're facing. We're getting pounded on pricing from private carriers and seeing no better results and in many cases, worse.
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Completely agree but Amazon has changed a lot of customer's expectations.
 
USPS for me has been worse now than what the pandemic first started. I ordered a shaft on Jan 10th. Departed Jan 11th...... no further updates. still lost out there somewhere but ive been refunded

2 packages I shipped Feb 2nd just arrived Monday 2/14 and yesterday 2/17
 
I just bought a set of used clubs from a gentleman in West Virginia. I live in SW Washington state. He delivered them to his post office early Tuesday morning, and they showed up on my porch Thursday afternoon. It was shipped Priority Mail, which IMO doesn't necessarily count for much because the description pretty much says it's 1-3 business days but no guarantees. Generally I've had less than stellar experiences with USPS on their priority shipments over the years, including one time when they sent my family's passports to Vancouver, BC instead of Vancouver, WA (cost me a fair chunk of change getting expedited replacements so we could make our flight). But this time the US Postal Service definitely made a good showing.
 
UPS lost my package … cannot recommend
 
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