Merlin the magician

[Spaghetti Legs]

It is interesting how USPS has completely fallen apart, considering other shippers have appeared to hold it together OK. I’m waiting on a set of brakes, Missouri to Virginia, 10 days now. I shipped a fork to Delaware, took a detour down to Charlotte, and supposed to be delivered today 6 days later.

A couple of years ago, my local PO had major problems with lost mail, slow deliveries, etc, and they recovered within a few months. This is more worrisome as it seems to be system wide.

[Wattvagen]

lol, that is bad!

i know sometimes they use depots to improve efficiency, but sending something to LA when the ultimate destination is NJ makes zero sense!

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

It is interesting how USPS has completely fallen apart, considering other shippers have appeared to hold it together OK. I’m waiting on a set of brakes, Missouri to Virginia, 10 days now. I shipped a fork to Delaware, took a detour down to Charlotte, and supposed to be delivered today 6 days later.

A couple of years ago, my local PO had major problems with lost mail, slow deliveries, etc, and they recovered within a few months. This is more worrisome as it seems to be system wide.

Yeah I have generally had a great experience with USPS but lately not so much. I guess I use them more in the past year but..

Send something from Chicago to Grand Forks ND and a week later it got pinged in Memphis TN

Two days from there but 10 days total. Super glad I insured that one.

[Applesauce]

Originally Posted by Veloo

Did you pay for the slow or fast shipping?

My order as usual is hung up in Canada customs. It left Spain on the 13th.

Last year customs was taking 4 weeks to clear stuff.

Mine too, stuff for a customer. I called CBSA two days ago, they said you have to wait for the three-week mark for them to act (I was at two and a half). But then yesterday they cleared it...another week to make it west, per CP.

Still somehow beats paying UPS or FedEx $50 in brokerage. 😜

[weisan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20MFg_Qg84

[dbh]

Apropos of the selling on ebay thread, I've been shipping a bunch of things I've sold the last month via USPS Priority, and have been pretty impressed with the delivery times. Granted, it's not the run up to Christmas when all the private shippers were dumping their customers on the post office, but it's been very smooth. Not sure if Parcel Select has been as reliable, as I assume they're giving priority to well, Priority and Express. Interestingly, a first class envelope I sent to DC took a week to travel a few hundred miles down the East Coast, but a crankset shipped Priority made it to Hawaii in three days door to door. That was impressive.

[Veloo]

OK, happy camper.
Arrived today, no fees/ taxes/ duties.

[mtechnica]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

It is interesting how USPS has completely fallen apart, considering other shippers have appeared to hold it together

You’re acting like it’s surprising and nobody knows why. The changes Trumps administration made to USPS as well as making Dejoy the PMG are the direct and intentional cause of the recent decline of USPS service. Republicans like to sabotage public institutions like USPS so they can claim government run services don’t work then use that as an excuse for more privatization.

[DRZRM]

I see mtechnia beat me to it, DeJoy being given the job of Post Master General was a purposeful move to undermine the postal service. He continues to hold a multimillion dollar personal stake (between 35 and 70 million dollars) of XPO Logistics, a shipping company in direct competition with the USPS, and he has consistently argued for the privatization of the postal service. This is an obvious conflict of interests, by anyone's measure, and he should be terminated.

The fact that postage costs are level for letters and packages regardless of whether you are sending them to far-flung unpopulated regions or to nearby urban centers was deemed necessary by our government. Regulated pricing allowed smaller businesses to compete with larger ones who may wish to negotiate better deals based on their shipping volume. Companies can negotiate bulk discounts, but the process is overseen by the Postal Regulatory Commission and certain sized packages have a uniform price regardless of sender.

The post office employee a very diverse workforce, African Americans and veterans are well represented because of activist in their unions fighting for pay parity in the early years of the post office.

Large corporate special interests such as UPS, FedEx and XPO Logistics lobby congress and the Postal Regulatory Commission to take over shipping and mail processing without actually taking on the public service responsibility that that the Post Office has in paying living wages to its government workers.

And maybe the most egregious thing long predated our last president and his impact on the USPS. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 capped postage rate increases for first-class and bulk mail at the rate of inflation, required rapid pre-funding of retiree health benefits (unique among private and public companies, and a drain of almost 6 billion dollars each year out of annual revenue), limited the Postal Service’s ability to expand into new business areas, and subjected the Postal Service to strict borrowing limits.

The postal service is purposefully being run into the ground so that private companies can hollow out its finances at the expense of government workers. Obviously it is your right to support UPS, and FedEx, and for that matter Amazon, but when all the union/government jobs are gone, remember who pushed through these policies and why.

Hope that was not too political for the Paceline Forum, if so, I'll take my time out now.

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

It is interesting how USPS has completely fallen apart, considering other shippers have appeared to hold it together OK. I’m waiting on a set of brakes, Missouri to Virginia, 10 days now. I shipped a fork to Delaware, took a detour down to Charlotte, and supposed to be delivered today 6 days later.

A couple of years ago, my local PO had major problems with lost mail, slow deliveries, etc, and they recovered within a few months. This is more worrisome as it seems to be system wide.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by mtechnica

You’re acting like it’s surprising and nobody knows why. The changes Trumps administration made to USPS as well as making Dejoy the PMG are the direct and intentional cause of the recent decline of USPS service. Republicans like to sabotage public institutions like USPS so they can claim government run services don’t work then use that as an excuse for more privatization.

Political BS aside, how can one expect a bankrupt business to deliver good service? Trump had little to nothing to do with the post offices problems and had no control over the Postmaster General.

[mtechnica]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Political BS aside, how can one expect a bankrupt business to deliver good service? Trump had little to nothing to do with the post offices problems and had no control over the Postmaster General.

The main issue imo is that the post office is more of a tax payer funded public service than a private business that is intended to make a profit. The post office supplies services beyond just transactions for consumers and businesses shipping things to one another. Most of the changes that would be intended to make the usps profitable as if it were any old business would negatively impact poor and rural citizens of our country. Again the Republicans goal is to privatize and make a profit for individuals while decreasing taxes which means sabotaging the postal service which the Trump administration and the PMG have demonstrably done (politics BS aside).

[J.Higgins]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

Wow, that is fast. For me stuff from the British shops always pops right over, but the German stuff always gets hung up in customs.

Domestically, I’ve been shopping at Universal Cycles a lot recently. Portland based but they have a warehouse in Pennsylvania, so I get stuff from them in 2-3 days.

I've also been shopping at Universal a lot lately. Very nice to get something that delivers in two or three days.

[pdonk]

We'll see who "wins" the shipping race. The UK or the USA.

Pool on how many days from MNPLS to Toronto via USPS and Canada Post.

[reuben]

I bought a pair of shoes directly from Fizik. Too small. Returned them. Got a return authorization, label, etc. Dropped it off at USPS per instructions. Per the tracking someone picked it up at USPS, possibly DHL. Then it vanished. No tracking updates, no nothing.

About 5 weeks later I contacted Fizik. They said they'd look into it, and it would take about 4 days. Over a week later I contacted them again, they said that the shipper (whoever that is) hadn't found it. Fizik refunded my purchase anyway.

So - good on Fizik, but USPS isn't the only one with problems.

[fiamme red]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

not quite as fast but I ordered a campy athena long cage RD twice from taiwan (some guy had a bunch and I picked one up and had to pick the last one up a month later) and the derailleur was here within a week. This was when USPS was slammed so I got those before ordering something that came from Florida.

International shipping is fast nowadays.

I bought some chainrings from an eBay seller in Taiwan two weeks ago. The last tracking notice I got was eight days ago, "Departure from outgoing office (Chunghwa Post)." At this rate, I think I'll be lucky if I get the package by June.