USPS

Forum Administrative - NOT PROJECT OR "HELP"

Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
User avatar
davegun
 
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:00 pm

USPS

Post by davegun »

Will USPS be a shipping option again? I saw your message about problems with a web site, but that message is now gone.

UPS is more expensive and takes longer. Last time I used UPS, I watched my order roll around in the back of a truck between NY and NJ for 4 days and magically appear at my door in one day. The low cost USPS arrives in 3 days and they deliver on weekends. I may be just a dumb Electrical Engineer who knows nothing about shipping, but I somehow feel UPS is messing with us, so I will not be placing an order for delivery by UPS.

Thanks,

Dave

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67446
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: USPS

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

USPS may deliver reliably where you are, but that isn't the case everywhere.

If you ship a few thousand packages a day, you'll soon see that bad USPS service is more common, more widespread, and far worse than bad UPS service.

Our complaints and support issues regarding shipping dropped by about 80% when we stopped using USPS. Our financial losses dropped by a few thousand dollars per month, and our business people stopped having to spend a couple days per month showing receipts to the USPS claims office because they "couldn't find any record" of missing packages with tracking numbers and insurance.

At present, the complaints about our not using USPS run about 5% of the USPS-related complaints we got while using them. As much as we'd like to make you happy, we don't want to make 19 other people irate in the process.

The decision to drop USPS as a shipping option was data-driven, and the decision to use them again will be too. There are white papers and reports about this kind of thing, and we read them. If the USPS's performance gets up to a level where it's competitive with UPS from a shipper's perspective, we'll use them.

That isn't the case today though.

User avatar
davegun
 
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:00 pm

Re: USPS

Post by davegun »

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Dave

User avatar
mutlus
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2014 5:52 am

Re: USPS

Post by mutlus »

Hi,

I live in Turkey Istanbul. I want to buy your products but shipping cost is too high. I read your your problems with USPS and you are totally right about them but from the customer side I kindly request you to find a cheaper alternative to UPS.

You are doing a very good job...

User avatar
jednorozec
 
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:23 pm

Re: USPS

Post by jednorozec »

My only complaint about the USPS is that all of my orders from you go through Rochester which is actually further away from me than New York. UPS is just too expensive and I can never amass enough pennies to place a $200 order and get free shipping.

User avatar
mai109
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:53 pm

Re: USPS

Post by mai109 »

I would definitely love for Adafruit to bring back the USPS shipping option again. While they may cause some problems, I would be more than willing to put up with the occasional problem to save several dollars on an order. Often times I just need a small part or two and as much as I want to order it from adafruit.com (because I love your tutotials and educaitonal material!) I am occasionally forced to order from a competitor's website *coughSPARKFUNcough* to save from paying double the products price in shipping. :/

I realize I am just one customer, but I would love to see the USPS option again!

EVRE
 
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:21 pm

Re: USPS

Post by EVRE »

Filled cart with a few nick naks for some projects...

Not ordering with UPS at $12.52 as THE option, and I have ordered hundreds of $$$ from Adafruit. Why I pay more here is I feel like I'm paying for service and support.

I understand, but don't care that Adafruit has had trouble with the reliability of USPS. It was my option based on cost vs. speed as the customer. Want to keep UPS as your shipping provider, cutting the shipping charge in HALF would be a good start. Use your 20,000+ shipments a day or whatever as leverage. Sure, your not amazon... but..

I think Adafruit is going to have to suck it up and deal with it as a business problem on their end and continue to try to keep the other 99% of its customers happy.

Bring back a CHEAP shipping option
-Tevis

EVRE
 
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:21 pm

Re: USPS

Post by EVRE »

adafruit_support_mike wrote:USPS may deliver reliably where you are, but that isn't the case everywhere.

If you ship a few thousand packages a day, you'll soon see that bad USPS service is more common, more widespread, and far worse than bad UPS service.

Our complaints and support issues regarding shipping dropped by about 80% when we stopped using USPS. Our financial losses dropped by a few thousand dollars per month, and our business people stopped having to spend a couple days per month showing receipts to the USPS claims office because they "couldn't find any record" of missing packages with tracking numbers and insurance.

At present, the complaints about our not using USPS run about 5% of the USPS-related complaints we got while using them. As much as we'd like to make you happy, we don't want to make 19 other people irate in the process.

The decision to drop USPS as a shipping option was data-driven, and the decision to use them again will be too. There are white papers and reports about this kind of thing, and we read them. If the USPS's performance gets up to a level where it's competitive with UPS from a shipper's perspective, we'll use them.

That isn't the case today though.
I wonder what the real cost is in lost orders? hard to quantify. All you get are the PO'd customers who were loyal enough to post in the forum to complain.

Do you track cart baulking? (items added, viewed past entering address but never checked out?)

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67446
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: USPS

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

That's all internal business information. It has nothing to do with hardware support or teaching people electronics, so it isn't relevant to these forums.

The current rate of complaints about lack of a USPS option is about two a week. "Presenting numbers in isolation" is one of the most basic statistical sins though, so head back through the archives and take a look at the magnitude/frequency of "USPS tracking says you haven't even shipped my order yet." complaints from the past. Also compare those numbers to the magnitude/frequency of forum complaints about problems with orders shipped via UPS.

WRT cart baulking and missed sales opportunities, we're a company of hardware and software geeks involved in the Google Trusted Stores program, and were recently named one of the top-10 fastest growing tech companies in New York. None of the growth advisors or experts from other companies that we've talked to have listed 'insufficient data analysis' as a place where we need to improve. ;-)

Without citing absolute numbers, loss estimates related to shipping weigh in at a small fraction of the loss estimates from our last order of pid 814 mini wifi dongles arriving a week late, RasPis currently being out of stock, or the one-per-customer limits we put on supply-constrained products like the RasPi B+ or BBB.

User avatar
jdinnis
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:23 pm

Re: USPS

Post by jdinnis »

You can't teach people electronics if they can't afford to buy products. Regardless of how many people complain, it is clear that a LOT of your customers were choosing USPS when it was an option.

I know I did. Now I just let stuff sit in my shopping cart, wishing I could buy it. I just can't justify a 50% shipping tax on hobbies. Currently my cart has $25 worth of parts in it. Minimum UPS cost is over $12. And when it does arrive via UPS it is likely to be left in a snow bank or out in the rain. I was not joking about packages left in the snow bank, it happens often in the winter here. The UPS drivers refuse to come up the driveway to the house, even though I do a better job of snow removal than then county does on the road that the driver had to take to get to that point. So once the snow falls here, packages get left in the snow back at the road. Once I have had to dig one out that got buried by the snow plow. In the summer, the driver also won't walk the extra 40 feet from the driveway to the porch, so even if I am lucky enough to have the driver come up to the house, they always leave things out in the open. And complaining to UPS does not help, believe me I have tried. So my only recourse to NOT to spend money on UPS. I will vote with my dollars.

UPS may be great for businesses, but I am guessing most of your customers are not businesses. I don't have a full time employee to receive packages for me, and the local UPS drivers are HORRIBLE. But I do have a mailbox (a big one) where USPS can put my packages safely out of the rain and snow. And at a significantly lower cost. If USPS does not make sense for you, at lease offer some other option. I have had good luck using FedEx Smart Post for low cost shipping.

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: USPS

Post by adafruit »

if you order from adafruit and there are any UPS issues please let us know, depending on the issue we'll refund the shipping and/or replace the package if there is any damage. we've had fedex in the past and we have USPS for some locations and UPS for most locations. UPS has had the best service and record for over 99.999% of the packages, if you have any issues with UPS with an adafruit order please email [email protected] - for UPS residential, check out: http://www.ups.com/mychoice/

thanks,
adafruit support

User avatar
additional001
 
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Sep 18, 2014 1:11 pm

Re: USPS

Post by additional001 »

I'm new to adafruit, so the only option I have ever seen is the UPS options. Logistics wise both are adequate shippers to me (USPS and UPS). But my question is this really. HOW you ship with USPS matters A LOT! So what were the shipping options from USPS when adafruit was offering it? I have never had a problem shipping things priority mail in online auctions. You can even get 75% of the packing materials you need to ship from the USPS. Delivery time was 1-3 days with delivery confirmation. This seems like a viable option for small orders below a certain weight. It's cost effective and easy to calculate if you use flat rate priority. They offer insurance to protect both seller and buyers, delivery confirmation, and its still cheaper and faster than UPS on the lower weight end. However I could SO see adafruit not wanting to use USPS if say they were using Media Mail, Third Class, First Class, etc. Me personally I would love to see a USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate option for small projects... as one of the posters put it. It's hard to scrape up the the 200$ worth of pennies for the free UPS postage.

User avatar
NewGreenWorld
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2014 4:37 pm

Re: USPS

Post by NewGreenWorld »

How can I ship First Class USP

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: USPS

Post by adafruit »

if USPS is an option on check out, you can choose first class or express/priority. it is not available for locations and orders.

User avatar
scottyanke
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:44 pm

Re: USPS

Post by scottyanke »

As a customer who buys a few small, specialized items at a time, I much prefer to use USPS than pay at least $12 for UPS. That's for $2 parts that I can't get anywhere else, like your IDC breadboard headers. Other small inexpensive items are also on my list, but shipping is the killer.

While Adafruit may have experienced difficulties with USPS, I haven't. I purchase a lot of parts from all over the world that are shipped through USPS. Maybe one or two packages get lost a year. Everything else makes it in a timely manner. I understand the risks of shipping without tracking numbers. For me, orders under $20 are worth taking the risk because it is so low. If a package gets lost or damaged I don't blame the vendor. It was my choice to use that shipping method.

Please restore the option to use USPS for shipping. Once you do, then I'll be comfortable buying directly from you, instead of purchasing elsewhere, including Digikey. Even with the sales tax I have to pay them, their shipping is less than the UPS cost you are passing along.

Locked
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.

Return to “Administrative (closed)”