U.S. Postal Service - Are you as fed up with all of the changes as I am?

United States
November 3, 2007 5:40pm CST
I am so fed up with the Postal Service. They have upped there rates on everything and have made it so difficult for the patrons. I have sold brand new books on 2 different sites for about 8 years now. I have always sent them MEDIA MAIL because it was the most economical way for both my customers and me. I used to sell internationally and have enjoyed corresponding with people from all over the world. I could send a book via International Economy Letter Post for about 7 to 8 dollars Well the first of the year USPS upped the charges for international deliveries and did a way with economy letter post classification. My cost went from 7 or 8 dollars to 19 to 20 dollars for a single book yet the site I use only charged the buyer 12.99. So I had to go into every one of my 300 listings and remove international shipping. This means I can no longer communicate and sell my books to them because I would lose money on every sale instead of making anything. I already have the cost of the books plus shipping materials to pay for so economically it wasn't profitable at all. I live in a rural area and since we have only one car and he uses it for work I signed up with Stamps.com and have been able to print my postage on line and put the package in my mailbox (also bought a new extra large mailbox to hold bigger packages) for the carrier to take. I have done this now for several years and have been able to make a little extra income that we really need. Well, last night I sold a book that weighted a little over 2 lbs. I printed out the postage and got the book ready and put it in the mailbox. Today when I went out to get my mail the package was still there with a sticker on it that say due to new security laws a mail carrier can no longer pick up an item marked "media Mai" unless it weight 13 oz. or less. That anything over 13 oz.(and most books weight more that) has to be taken to the post office in person. So, since I will not have a car until Wednesday and the book site requires it be mailed in 48 hours I either had to up the postage to priority mail at a charge of $8.50 or cancel the order and issue a refund to the customer. Since I was only making $7.50 on the order because the book site takes their commission out of it, it was going to cost me $1.00 plus the cost of the book plus the cost of shipping supplies to send the book. So, I canceled the order, explained the situation an issued a refund. The US postal system has gotten so money hungry because their shoddy service forced people to start looking at alternatives and when we did, now they are coming back with even more ridiculous rules and prices. Have any other small business dealers found the postal service eating away at your profits and providing less and less of a reputable and reliable service to us at all?
2 people like this
5 responses
@marabdl86 (615)
• United States
4 Nov 07
Not only that but the sellers on Ebay are also taking a big hit on their profits I know I am :( Shipping rates have been crazy latley and I doubth they will get better in the future. Don't be suprised seeing seller's on Ebay charging a fortune to just ship a little item :(
2 people like this
• United States
4 Nov 07
I sell on Amazon and Half.com. I have for years and have always offered international shipping. But when I started to ship a reasonably small book and the shipping had jumped to over $20. I said that's it and took international off of all my listings. I then started to notice that a lot of other sellers were doing the same thing. That took money out of USPS pockets, didn't put more in. Where is their logic. Amazon and Half.com have not kept up with the rise in postage costs as they should. They definitely are not helping the sellers and we are where they make their profit to. I don't think this takes a rocket scientist to figure out that if sellers start dropping out because they end up having to pay big chunks of there little profit that the book sites will lose money to.
1 person likes this
• United States
4 Nov 07
oops sorry, thanks for the great response.
1 person likes this
@lilybug (21107)
• United States
3 Nov 07
It is getting a little crazy. My sister recently sold a book on Amazon to someone is Australia, and Amazon only charged $12.99 shipping. My sister got to the post office and it was $28 for shipping the book.
2 people like this
• United States
4 Nov 07
That is who I sell on as well and the price they charge the buyers for postage do not cover what the sellers actually have to pay. Thanks for your response.
1 person likes this
@armywifey (883)
• United States
20 Nov 07
I hate the new prices of the postal service just as much as anyone, but I understand the reason for it. Hardly anyone uses the postal service anymore in the day of email and online bill pay. Used to be everything was sent by mail and the postal service took a huge cut with all this new technology so they are making up the diffrence by raising the postage rates. They less we use the postal service, the more the rates are going to raise.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
7 Nov 07
I worked for the Postal Service for 18 years and I gotta tell you they deserve to lose all their business! They went from saying "SERVICE" was #1 to caring about nothing but the almighty dollar. Management harrasses and pushes the workers like the clerks and carriers to the breaking point. They no longer care about quality of service, they no longer care about courtesy to the patrons, they care not at all about the carriers safety...they care about them getting done as quickly as possible and when they do it in the "allotted" time they decide it can be done faster still. When I first started there I was very proud of the job the USPS did but they took what once was a good thing and destroyed it. Annie
1 person likes this
• United States
14 Nov 07
I hear you. I do a lot of selling on Amazon and half.com and I am hearing so many other sellers complaining to. I don't make a lot selling on these sites but the post office just keeps eating up more of my profits and the service gets worse all of the time. Thanks for responding.
@laurika (4532)
• United States
4 Nov 07
Yeah this is really crazy.Let me tell you my experience.i just come here in summer from Europe and I wanted send few shirts to my brother my mum and dad.So I was shopping for them and all I bought was one jeans, 3 shirts and 2 shorts and put it to the box and i was all happy runing to the post office.When hey tell me price for shipping it, I was really upset.It was over $40 !!I couldn't believe it, it was amlost more expensive like all the stuff I buy for them.So now I am really thinking what to buy for them for christmas to not pay all fortune for the postage.
2 people like this