Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Trader Beware: Why the Post Office is going out of business...

Royboy said:
Any post office employee will tell you that the biggest problem facing the post office is being federally mandated to pre-fund its retiree health care benefits. No other business has to do that. The post office would turn a profit but for this mandate.
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I've also read this in many articles over the recent year or so.. that if it wasn't for the millions spent there, the post office would actually be profitable. I wouldn't be surprised if they start shifting the cost to the consumer...
 
Can't comment on the way USPS is funded, or how it is government run, etc.

I can, however, say that I rant and rave about how reliable and amazing the Postal Service in Canada is. And I am so happy with the prices! But boy would I love it if USPS took it over and we got all the services my neighbours to the South have! :eek:

Those little domestic packages which are sent with tracking cost those in the US a couple dollars max. Do you know what the comparison to that costs in Canada? Well...for the longest time we did not even have a service like that, they just added one a couple months ago. It costs about $8 domestic, and here I am stoked as can be.

You guys have flat rate boxes which go airmail, and ship International (albeit without tracking). Those cost less than what I would pay to send overseas, and mine would go surface mail.

I believe express mail from USPS is about $35-$50 International with tracking (feel free to correct me if wrong). In Canada I can ship a [small box] express to the US with tracking for $35 which is awesome. If I wanted to send a similar box to the UK.... $130! I don't frequently ship elsewhere, but other countries are way more.

Anyways the only thing I'm trying to say here is that you guys get pretty darn good deals. So the reality is that USPS will probably increase their rates to be less of a money eater. Take the good with the bad...prices will probably still be better than many other countries. :) and don't blame the postal clerks....it's never their fault
 
cbd1235 said:
Can't comment on the way USPS is funded, or how it is government run, etc.

I can, however, say that I rant and rave about how reliable and amazing the Postal Service in Canada is. And I am so happy with the prices! But boy would I love it if USPS took it over and we got all the services my neighbours to the South have! :eek:

Those little domestic packages which are sent with tracking cost those in the US a couple dollars max. Do you know what the comparison to that costs in Canada? Well...for the longest time we did not even have a service like that, they just added one a couple months ago. It costs about $8 domestic, and here I am stoked as can be.

You guys have flat rate boxes which go airmail, and ship International (albeit without tracking). Those cost less than what I would pay to send overseas, and mine would go surface mail.

I believe express mail from USPS is about $35-$50 International with tracking (feel free to correct me if wrong). In Canada I can ship a [small box] express to the US with tracking for $35 which is awesome. If I wanted to send a similar box to the UK.... $130! I don't frequently ship elsewhere, but other countries are way more.

Anyways the only thing I'm trying to say here is that you guys get pretty darn good deals. So the reality is that USPS will probably increase their rates to be less of a money eater. Take the good with the bad...prices will probably still be better than many other countries. :) and don't blame the postal clerks....it's never their fault
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I have a lot of Canadian friends that cross the border every week to ship out packages internationally. Saves them a lot of money. But again, they live close to the border.
 
elam18 said:
I have a lot of Canadian friends that cross the border every week to ship out packages internationally. Saves them a lot of money. But again, they live close to the border.
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And we wonder why taxpayers have to subsidize them lol. No blame though cause we'd all do the same thing.

---------- Post added 07/03/2013 at 09:38 AM ----------
cbd1235 said:
. If I wanted to send a similar box to the UK.... $130! I don't frequently ship elsewhere, but other countries are way more.

don't blame the postal clerks....it's never their fault
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$130.00??? I guess that's the right price to remain profitable or is it due to taxes so as to discourage international trade?

Here, a lot of the problem IS postal clerks. Since they are government employees you can't fire them so they're not worried about keeping their jobs...unless of course they shoot up fellow employees or something like that. It's why we have a saying in our lexicon "going postal".
Recently we had a group of workers who rifled through boxes and pawned what the found. They got caught cause of the pawning but kept their jobs.
What if you or I did that in ANY other business? We would be in jail.

Now, of course, there are good employees too like Rusty pointed out. I've worked with many over the years:)
 
I think the bottom line is that if you want better service you are going to have to pay for it. In the years I have used the USPS, as their rates increased so did their performance. Years ago you did not get full tracking on Express International shipping. Now it is a standard. I had to pay $85 back in the day to use UPS with full tracking. That is double what you pay at USPS today...

UPS and Fed Ex provide more incentive to their employee's because the customer is paying more. The reality is that most of the people on this site could not or do not want to pay $10-15 for every card they trade or sell.

Outside of Japan, No company provides the same rates with better customer service. Realistically no one is doing anything better for the same dollar amount.
 
elam18 said:
If you look at it, the USPS is losing money every year.. that's why they wanted to cut Saturday mail delivery, but couldn't due to government interference. If they can make you go priority mail, they'll be making $5.95 instead of $2.97 with tracking.
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Quoting for the irony. Government interference with a government entity. Doesn't that like make stars implode and the universe collapse on itself?
 
Daelum said:
You mean like what happens when you divide by zero?
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Zero exists technically as a number in certain subsets, but it is an absence of a quantity in reality. It is similar to dividing "miles" by "hours" This is more irreducible than impossible. It is much easier for schools to teach division by zero as impossible, than to spend an entire week on something that the state does not require.
 
This PayPal service is pretty handy for avoiding post office incidences like in the OP. Before it, I simply puffed up the mailer with a couple pieces of scrap paper or newspaper, but this shipping completely obviated the need to even go to the PO.
 
I just fold the bubble mailer in half. Trollandtoad does it, it protects the contents better and saves any trouble about not being thick enough.
 
elam18 said:
If you look at it, the USPS is losing money every year.. that's why they wanted to cut Saturday mail delivery, but couldn't due to government interference. If they can make you go priority mail, they'll be making $5.95 instead of $2.97 with tracking.
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so then starting next month, there will still be Saturday mail, coming and going?
 
US Post: Extremely cheap, protection and customer service to match.
Canada Post: Expensive, no other problems.
 
Usps is crap yeah they are cheap and will almost always get your package to the destination but beware if they loose a package its almost guaranteed you wont be getting it back I sent a package to canada about 8months ago it had tracking and insurance I called the crappy 1800 number and they told me that the shipping was still within the time frame this was 6 months into it well I decided to wail and a week ago I called and I was told that I was screwed since I had waited more than 180 days and that I could not do anything about the lost package since I had waited too long even though I was told that the package was still within the time frame so now im out 80 dollars even though I had insurance
 
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