No, I'm not in shock, because UPS has plunged, in both quality and pricing in the last year. Use FedEx ground. They usually cut a day off it, and it's cheaper. Plus, the guys aren't any worse than the UPS guys, even though they're non union. The UPS guys we've had lately, look about 19, and the kind of person you'd see working behind a burger grill. They treat our stuff like it's garbage. I've had it with UPS and refuse to use them anymore. They're completely disconnected with reality at this point. Or... USPS priority. Works fine.

Thanks, dpd1:

yeah, things are not good in shipping overall.

As for FedEx, I had been avoiding them since hearing about how they treated some of their drivers as independent contractors:

[money.cnn.com...]

As for my item, it used to be that shipping by Priority mail was MORE expensive than fedex or UPS ground, but now it looks cheaper to ship by priority mail.

Oh yeah, it's way cheaper, considering that you are getting faster service. Which also gives you some leeway, as far as when it goes out. Tracking with PO is still not perfect, but it's better than it used to be. One thing you have to be careful about, is that... you have to make sure it does get scanned at pickup. The best way to do that is print out the scan sheet with all the pieces in one pickup. That way you can force them to scan it and get all the stuff in the system right then. If you don't do that, some guys are lazy and don't scan it. Then if the same happens at the first station, sometimes stuff doesn't get scanned on that end at all. Then if it disappears after that, guess what happens... No evidence, no claim payment. On the positive side... Say that someone claims they didn't get something. You can call the station at that end, and get them to look into it. Many times, they will resolve what happened. If you call UPS with that, you're going to get... "Says here we delivered it Sir... We did our part". Plus... Free boxes. Can't beat that.

I used USPS (only) for 8 years shipping worldwide, they lost one package in that time and paid for it. You can order free supplies, schedule free pickups and if it is all ready to scan, they'll scan it on pickup. They upload and synch all data only twice a day so it is not instantaneous but it is there in a reasonable way. They also use dimensional weight which killed a few large, lightweight low end products that used to be popular for me. It started costing twice as much for shipping than the product cost and I took it out of inventory.

Congress regulates USPS costs directly and forced USPS to start using dimensional weight 5 years before commercial shippers, but now they all will be doing it.

Thank you both, dpd1 and not2easy.

When you have them scan, are you having the carrier who picks up scan the package / scan form?

Our local carrier (i.e., postman / postwoman) has a scanner for DELIVERING things like certified mail, but he says that his scanner won't scan the scan forms, and that we have to wait in line and drop them off at the local post office to get the scan forms scanned.

I don't usually print out the scan forms (I use Endicia / dazzle software) and I don't think there is a way to print out scan forms using that. (They don't "batch" shipments the way the USPS website does, where you can add several packages to your cart and then print out all the labels at one time.)

I know they say that for insurance to be valid, they MUST have a scan form scanned in. But what if you didn't have a scan form scanned, but the local post office scanned in the tracking number, and then the local hub scanned in the tracking number, and then the destination post office scanned in the tracking number. Surely that would be proof enough that they had the package in their system, right?

Congress regulates USPS costs directly and forced USPS to start using dimensional weight 5 years before commercial shippers, but now they all will be doing it.

Yeah. That is why I love flat rate boxes and now the regional rate boxes (I think they have been around for about two years now). Although the regional rate boxes are kind of small and the cost to size ratio isn't all that great, they still seem to be a halfway decent value.

Unfortunately for my needs though, I am just going to have to use standard post (formerly parcel post) and pray a lot. Fortunately, endicia allows you to print out standard post online (unlike the usps website that only allows priority mail or higher to be printed out online).

I don't know, maybe some guys have older scanners. My guy can scan the individual items and also the scan sheet... and it shows up while he's still working, so it must be tied into a cell system. To my knowledge, you shouldn't need the scan sheet done to have it covered by the insurance, nor should you have to take it to the station. I'm pretty sure I've made claims without the scan sheet, and I never take stuff to the station. If you can't do the scan sheet, you'll just have to be firm about the guy doing it when he comes. Some guys are stubborn and want to do it their way, and wait until later. As I said, there have been times when nobody scanned it at all on this end, then they denied the claim because they said there was no evidence it ever shipped. Even though I showed them that none of the batch that went that day got scanned in the beginning either, they still said the same thing. As with any org, you sometimes have to push a little to get your way. But I would say it's easier with them, than UPS. Those guys couldn't care less.

I don't know, maybe some guys have older scanners.

I just don't think our guy BRINGS his scanner along. Maybe he just leaves it in the truck - which is inevitably parked down the block.

For the most part we have been lucky and things get scanned in SOMEWHERE along the line (usually at the local main post office for our county).

It seems like international mail has the worst rate of getting scanned though.