Power Sellers Unite

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3735

eBay sellers will pay the price if economy forces the USPS to cut delivery days.

Since 1983, federal law has mandated that the Post Office deliver 6 days a week. The economy could change that according to Postmaster General John E. Potter. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee, Potter warned of a possible worst-case scenario: eliminating the requirement to deliver mail six days a week to every address in America.

Potter stated that In fiscal 2008, total mail volume fell by more than 9 billion pieces, down 4.5% compared to fiscal year 2007.

Link to the rest of the story http://tinyurl.com/acommerce7

psunite · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 6213 Location: Columbus OH

Postmaster General says massive deficits may force post office to cut 1 day of mail delivery

WASHINGTON (AP) — Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week. If the change happens, that doesn't necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year. "If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year," Postmaster General John E. Potter said in testimony for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

Total mail volume was 202 billion items last year, over 9 billion less than the year before, the largest single volume drop in history.
more.. link to news article

armourereric · Joined: 25 Aug 2008 Posts: 129

I live in a town with a large population of full time fleebayers. The morning that I was bounced by fleebay for unacceptable DSR, I was at the PO to ship an ebay box, and mentioned that I was "out" at ebay, the clerk, who is also a powerseller, knowing that I dropped about $20K in shipping there last year, called the town postmaster over to give him the bad news, 4 others in line spoke up that they too had been dumped by ebay over the night before. The postmaster met with us all in a small meeting room at the meeting it was determined that we collectively spent nearly $250,000 at that PO in the last year, he immediately concluded to prepare for layoffs.

Eric

argraphics · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Pembroke Pines | FL

Wow you must live in a nice town at my USPS they dont seem to happy when they see me going in there with 20 boxes that are already stamped all they have to do is scan them.

magazinehawkonline · Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 97

I expected this would have happened alot sooner. A few years back when USPS did a price increase, they realized they were shipping more packages and less mail, mostly due to the proliferation of the internet and online payments etc. It was discussed back then but shot down. This time I think it will go through.

As for the DSR's, that is frustrating. Buyers don't seem to care how fast you ship the item only how long it takes to get to them. I took a big hit during Christmas due to expected (at least by me) longer shipping times. I still shipped every package within 1 business day of payment yet shipping time DSR dropped from >4.9 to 4.7.

red_robin · Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Posts: 66

argraphics wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Wow you must live in a nice town at my USPS they dont seem to happy when they see me going in there with 20 boxes that are already stamped all they have to do is scan them.

At my postoffice they aren't too happy to see me either with all my IT packages which do need to be processed by them.
The front-window staff at my local postoffice was cut from five employees to two and waiting times have been averaging 30-45 minutes at times.
Do I see a cut back in home delivery days on the horizon??Hate to say so,but Yes. :(

knappschiles · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4035 Location: Wi

It seems that Eric at least lives in a place where they realize that if it wasn't for all the eBayer and other internet sellers, the post office probably would have been out of business years ago.

Before I started selling, I hardly ever went to the post office. Maybe once/year to get stamps to mail my bills. Now I do my bills mostly on-line so if I wasn't selling I wouldn't even be doing that. But right now during my high selling time, I'm at the post office at least 3 times/ week.

I'm not saying the post office doesn't have waste problems and other issues, but unfortunately in general it looks like they DID realize that non-letter items were going up at a time when actual letters were dropping. With the price hike of 2 years ago (I think that was the first BIG one) letters went up 2 cents. But packages went up 35-100%. Before that rate increase I was sending my average 00 buble 2 oz mailer for 0.67. Afterward it became 1.20.

Frankly it's no wonder the post office has partnered with eBay on some packaging and put eBay on it. They are acting just like eBay and squeezing us sellers for all we are worth.

Unfortunately for many of us there isn't any option to the USPS, unlike eBay where we can use alt sites and even our own web site. Yes some will be able to use UPS and Fed-ex, but the percentage is a lot less that those of us that can get away from the other money hog, eBay.

Carol

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17231 Location: Texas

Related article:

http://www.powersellersunite.com/viewtopic.php?t=24940

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3735

argraphics wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Wow you must live in a nice town at my USPS they dont seem to happy when they see me going in there with 20 boxes that are already stamped all they have to do is scan them.

The Post Offices I use have all been pretty good....they know I am saving them lots of work and seem pretty happy that I do labels at home...but most will not scan packages on the way in, except for my international because I have a sheet from USPS.com that says they must scan it. For the domestic, they say that because I get special pricing, they dont have to scan it....oh well....they do get scanned in at the next hub up the road so it doesnt bother me...

I remember when I was in Louisiana there was a post office that scanned all my packages but then they suddenly came out with a policy that said no scanning of packages...bad timing for them to do that right before Xmas and I had also just had a ton of patch auctions end....it was December 18th, 2006...the busiest day of the year for the Post Office and I walked in with 184 small packages...all with delivery confirmation...I felt like Santa Claus....

They did them 1 by 1 manually and it took 1 1/2 hours to do...halfway through the Postmaster there (who made the policy) started helping out.....his clerks gave HIM the evil eye and not me as if to say "See? we warned you". the line building up behind me was enourmous....needless to say he announced that from now on "That Guy" can have his packages scanned in and he made sure all of the clerks heard it...my receipt was about 18 feet long....I had no hard feelings....I looked at it as a form of "Tough Love"....and afterwards I went out and brought them back 5 large pizzas since they may have been too busy to take a long lunch break....

mojavelyn · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject:

Don't count on it being scanned at the next hub. I shipped a 30# media that made it all the way to the delivery point without a scan. and it was 2 days out of the postal estimated delivery time.

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3735

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Don't count on it being scanned at the next hub. I shipped a 30# media that made it all the way to the delivery point without a scan. and it was 2 days out of the postal estimated delivery time.

Yes, it depends on the hub....I know where I am at now, they get scanned at the next stop in North Jersey or Philly.....in Louisiana, if it wasnt scanned in at the post office it didnt get scanned until the final delivery (if they didnt screw that up)....which is why it was important to me that they got scanned in as soon as possible...

Nikkicute · Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Posts: 879

PatchDog wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")argraphics wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Wow you must live in a nice town at my USPS they dont seem to happy when they see me going in there with 20 boxes that are already stamped all they have to do is scan them.

The Post Offices I use have all been pretty good....they know I am saving them lots of work and seem pretty happy that I do labels at home...but most will not scan packages on the way in, except for my international because I have a sheet from USPS.com that says they must scan it. For the domestic, they say that because I get special pricing, they dont have to scan it....oh well....they do get scanned in at the next hub up the road so it doesnt bother me...

I remember when I was in Louisiana there was a post office that scanned all my packages but then they suddenly came out with a policy that said no scanning of packages...bad timing for them to do that right before Xmas and I had also just had a ton of patch auctions end....it was December 18th, 2006...the busiest day of the year for the Post Office and I walked in with 184 small packages...all with delivery confirmation...I felt like Santa Claus....

They did them 1 by 1 manually and it took 1 1/2 hours to do...halfway through the Postmaster there (who made the policy) started helping out.....his clerks gave HIM the evil eye and not me as if to say "See? we warned you". the line building up behind me was enourmous....needless to say he announced that from now on "That Guy" can have his packages scanned in and he made sure all of the clerks heard it...my receipt was about 18 feet long....I had no hard feelings....I looked at it as a form of "Tough Love"....and afterwards I went out and brought them back 5 large pizzas since they may have been too busy to take a long lunch break....

Ohhhh Patch that was so nice of you to do that :)

If they are going to cut back on delivery (I think the day is going to
be Tuesday, so it won't effect weekend delivery) post office hours should
be extended, they should be open much much later.

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3735

Nikkicute wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Ohhhh Patch that was so nice of you to do that :)

Not so much as "nice" as wanting to show I have no hard feelings. Plus, it's just a good business practice to build up a positive relationship with your local post office....where I am at now, the Postmaster is from Hong Kong originally and his father is in Guangzhou, China where I have a house at....so we have a bit in common with visits to China and we talk about it...I gave him my email so that when he visits this summer he can let me know and we can get together.....during Christmas, when his clerks saw my van pull up, they called him and he came out with a trolley to load up the packages and even had a hand scanner to scan the international packages for me...with the long lines they had many days this saved me some time in addition to keeping his lobby clear of 15-20 larger packages....

knappschiles · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4035 Location: Wi

I believe they said possibly Tuesday because that day has lower volume. But with all the Mondays they already have off, if they are also closed on Tuesday, that's going to be a big headache for plenty of us.

Personally they should ditch Saturday. After all, most people have Saturdays off. For me, I'm busy on Saturdays for over 1/2 of the year and can't get to the post office then anyway.

I can just see the shipping DSR for a company that gets an order late on Friday, after business hours. Company isn't open on Saturday. Post Office is closed for some Monday Holiday and then that Tuesday. So the package can't go out til Wednesday. Customer doesn't care that Wed is the first business day since the order.

Carol

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3735

I agree with everything you said Carol....DSRs for eBay sellers can be affected by this which is why I wrote the article from that point of view...even buyers outside of eBay might get a little impatient about the extra delay. All a seller can do is advice the customer of the new policy (if it gets to that point) and hope for the best.