[pct-l] Fwd: UPS vs USPS

[Kathi]

I think everyone here is looking up prices on-line right now but I 
wanted to relate a resent experience I had for what it's worth.

I often ship via Priority Mail and I recently found out that the little 
postal/UPS store that I go to (not the actual post office but one of 
those independent businesses) was charging me double for Priority Mail! 
They charged me $10.95 for the standard flat rate envelope that is only 
$4.95 if you go directly into the post office. Yikes! At the time I said 
"wow, that postage has gone up a lot" and the gal just told me that is 
the standard price and it is cheaper to use UPS. I needed to get the 
item out so I just sent it and then later checked on it. I like to 
support my local independent businesses as I am a business owner 
myself... but not when they way over charge like that.

Going through that business made the USPS prices seems way out of whack 
with the UPS/FedEx prices when in actuality the USPS was much cheaper.

At any rate I thought I'd throw this info out there so if you are 
planning on using one of those type of businesses you can compare the 
prices so you know. If going USPS it will probably be cheaper to go 
directly to their offices.

Happy hiking and planning!
Kathi

Carl Siechert wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 5:33 AM, David Margavage <davidmargavage at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>   
>> GEEEZ, Everyone is so dam skeptical.  I know Companies that use the free
>> USPS boxes to ship NUT & BOLTS.  And there freak'n heavy! I was
>>
>>     
> My company is one of those; we sell tools and accessories for metalworking
> hobbyists, and it's not uncommon for us to get 20-25 pounds of iron into a
> Priority Mail Flat Rate Box.
>
> We ship about 400 packages per week--about a quarter of them by USPS and the
> rest by UPS. If price is your only consideration, you have to compare each
> time. The rate structures for both outfits are inscrutable and it's hard to
> know without looking them up which will be less expensive for a particular
> source/destination location pair, weight, and service (size is also a factor
> sometimes). Typical backpack resupply packages of 10-20 pounds are in the
> area where the two are most competitive (for lighter packages, USPS is
> generally cheaper, and UPS is usually cheaper for heavier packages)--so you
> really must look it up.
>
> Of course, price isn't (or shouldn't be) the only consideration. UPS
> provides guaranteed delivery times and tracking on all packages. USPS
> provides neither, except on Express Mail. (The "tracking" number that you
> can use on Priority Mail or Parcel Post is actually used only for Delivery
> Confirmation. Although it sometimes gets scanned during a package's journey,
> which can give you a clue as to where the package is, USPS is under no
> obligation to scan it anywhere except at delivery, and the interim scans are
> actually pretty useless for predicting when a package will arrive or in
> locating a lost package.) Similarly, there's no service guarantee for
> Priority Mail. In our experience, about half of the PM packages we mail
> throughout the country arrive in three days or less (sometimes faster than
> UPS), and something like 98% make it in a week or less. Lost packages are
> very very rare, but it's not uncommon that some packages take two weeks to
> deliver. By contrast, UPS delivers about 99% on exactly the day they say
> they will. (Depending on where you're shipping from/to within the
> continental US, the guaranteed delivery time for UPS Ground is 1-5 business
> days.)
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