Luke wrote:To add to the frustration, after paying high international shipping rates things still manage to get lost in the mail.
Shipping inside the States = Cheap, reliable, efficient
International shipping is the exact opposite.
Exactly why I only ship inside the US
I would love to do all my buying and selling within Canada, but i just get much better deals out of the US even with the extra shipping costs added on.
My only advise is to start shipping via flat rate priority mail via USPS. This allows you to ship anything that fits in the box for one price. You can even get the boxes shipped to you for free in any amount of boxes you require. Its very convient to get free boxes, fill them out before you leave the house, and then know what you will pay once u get the the post office.
UPS and Fedex are a scam compared to USPS shipping. I love their service but its nearly twice as much to ship a single dvd with them than via USPS.
"The librarian does not rue the library, nor the curator fear the exhibits. Rather they revel in their potential. And that is the beauty of a big backlog; pure potential." - Exhuminator
8bit wrote:My only advise is to start shipping via flat rate priority mail via USPS. This allows you to ship anything that fits in the box for one price. You can even get the boxes shipped to you for free in any amount of boxes you require. Its very convient to get free boxes, fill them out before you leave the house, and then know what you will pay once u get the the post office.
Huh? Flat rate boxes are only a good deal if you're shipping gold, rocks, mercury, sand, etc...
I hate the post office. They advertise the crap out of the "convenience" of flat-rate boxes AT the f'ing post office. Sure, they're convenient if you're having a package picked up. But they don't really make regular priority mail boxes available in a lot of post offices anymore. If you already have to stand in line for half an hour to get to the counter, you might as well wait the extra five seconds it takes to weigh to box so that you can save five bucks.
Also, I hate the post office because they've screwed up my stuff several times. I've had rats tear into packages I mailed my wife using priority mail. What the heck!?!?! I was mailing from one major metropolitan area to another.
UPS and Fedex are more expensive, but they are much more reliable in my experience, and aren't a government-granted monopoly on mail delivery.
8bit wrote:My only advise is to start shipping via flat rate priority mail via USPS. This allows you to ship anything that fits in the box for one price. You can even get the boxes shipped to you for free in any amount of boxes you require. Its very convient to get free boxes, fill them out before you leave the house, and then know what you will pay once u get the the post office.
Huh? Flat rate boxes are only a good deal if you're shipping gold, rocks, mercury, sand, etc...
I hate the post office. They advertise the crap out of the "convenience" of flat-rate boxes AT the f'ing post office. Sure, they're convenient if you're having a package picked up. But they don't really make regular priority mail boxes available in a lot of post offices anymore. If you already have to stand in line for half an hour to get to the counter, you might as well wait the extra five seconds it takes to weigh to box so that you can save five bucks.
Also, I hate the post office because they've screwed up my stuff several times. I've had rats tear into packages I mailed my wife using priority mail. What the heck!?!?! I was mailing from one major metropolitan area to another.
UPS and Fedex are more expensive, but they are much more reliable in my experience, and aren't a government-granted monopoly on mail delivery.
Personally I think the flat rate for $3.95 small package is a good deal considering they will send you as many free boxes as you need, will allow you pay and print postage from home with any printer, and if you do that then the package can be just dropped into any mailbox. You can fit up to 2 dvd size games in those boxes.
However, I will say that I just got done shipping 1 dvd in just an envelope with delivery confirmation via USPS for $3.04 so that wasnt a bad deal either.
"The librarian does not rue the library, nor the curator fear the exhibits. Rather they revel in their potential. And that is the beauty of a big backlog; pure potential." - Exhuminator
8bit wrote:My only advise is to start shipping via flat rate priority mail via USPS. This allows you to ship anything that fits in the box for one price. You can even get the boxes shipped to you for free in any amount of boxes you require. Its very convient to get free boxes, fill them out before you leave the house, and then know what you will pay once u get the the post office.
Hmm interesting, I wonder if Canada Post has something similar, I gotta look into that..
8bit wrote:
Personally I think the flat rate for $3.95 small package is a good deal considering they will send you as many free boxes as you need, will allow you pay and print postage from home with any printer, and if you do that then the package can be just dropped into any mailbox. You can fit up to 2 dvd size games in those boxes.
The cheapest small flat-rate boxes I've seen were $4.85.
But again, if you're having the package picked up or something, it kind of makes sense. But if you're already at the post office, you have to stand in the really long line anyway. That's where USPS is completely obnoxious. They intentionally make it hard or impossible to ship standard priority anymore. Last time I was at the post office, I went Saturday morning and was the first one there. I told the woman behind the counter that there were NO Priority Mail boxes available that weren't flat-rate. She told me that they request priority mail boxes from the central office, but they won't send them. What the heck?!?!