Shipping Services

Hi All,

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up as to how and why I use the USPS for our company's shipping service.

PRICES

• I believe the USPS has everybody beat with their Flat Rate Priority mail envelopes and boxes. They offer those envelopes and boxes for free as well.That's hard to beat. I am pretty sure that no other company is offering these right now. These envelopes and boxes work well for smaller items that fit into them. The heavier items is where the USPS is slightly more expensive and takes a little longer on shipping. For International shipping the USPS steps up and again with prices that are significantly lower than the competition especially on large items. The competition is competitive with Canadian shipping but anything overseas they aren't even close.

TRACKING

• This is where the USPS loses a lot of clout. I will admit that their tracking is pretty poor. Most of the time when I print a label and the customer gets the tracking number it does not update and says something like "the label was printed but that does not mean that the package has been dropped off". This usually results in an email from the customer which I then reassure that I did drop their package off. UPS & Fedex have excellent tracking systems. I can't really say anything bad about their systems.
  

CHECKOUT INTEGRATION

• I believe this is a lot more important for me than our customers. This allows us the chance to take our customers information directly from the shopping cart into Paypal and then directly into the shipping information page where the shipping label is created. I know that Paypal only uses the USPS and UPS. I am not sure about Fedex.

SUMMARY

• For me its hard to beat the service that I get from the USPS. Their good service and low prices allow me to charge less for shipping services than some of my competition. I think the only reason that some companies do not use their services is that their is a stigma that you are not a "real" business unless you use UPS or Fedex. I know that UPS rates go down as your shipping volume goes up but only a few companies pass that savings on to you. Many just charge higher rates and absorb the extra as profit.

Thanks,

Andy