Shipping w/UPS is not cheap

[STLFeeder]

My post office lady is too lazy to walk to the door to try to deliver, she just leaves a "sorry we missed you" card in the mail box and I have to go pick it up myself.

 

[dilligaf]

My post office lady is too lazy to walk to the door to try to deliver, she just leaves a "sorry we missed you" card in the mail box and I have to go pick it up myself.

I like my usps guy. He knows I work for UPS and he seems to go out of his way to make sure my pkgs get left. He always waves when he sees me. I have even left a note in my mailbox asking him to get an rs pkg off my porch that would fit in my mailbox.

 

[feeder53]

I have the same problem with USPS, There was too much snow, to big a package, too long a driveway ETC ETC ETC. I just received a large auto part from UPS a day after I ordered it and he left it in my garage...perfect.

 

[feeder53]

As a second note to this post, UPS employees make an honest wage and work hard to attain that. This money is spent in the local comunity and therefore helps local economies. If one thinks of this aspect whenhe ships, it makes more sense.

 

[over9five]

How can you BE a UPS employee and then complain about UPS prices??? That is how UPS pays us a very good wage!
And then to go to the competition to save a few bucks, sheesh!

I use UPS all the time. Just the "save time" feature to me is more important than saving a few bucks. In other words, no trip to the Post Office, just print a label and bring the box to work with me. AND of course, I'm supporting my company and my employment.

I can understand if you're a UPS employee who also has a side business. Then (perhaps) it becomes a business decision to use the PO. But an employee who ships 10 times a year should support his job by using UPS.

MHO

 

[dannyboy]

As a small business owner, I have to compete with a lot of other businesses for your business.

Most customers are bottom shoppers, including many on this board. We have one driver that drove to knoxville to pick up some items for his house to save shipping charges. Money saved on shipping, $45. Time spent going after the item, 5 hours, miles traveled, 287. And he was bragging about how much money he saved because he saved $5 on the item, and the shipping. I figure he went in the hole.

I offer the customer options, they can choose between UPS, fedx and USPS. Or the cheapest way. 99% choose the cheapest way. And for many smaller items, less than 3-6 pounds, the USPS is the cheapest by far. After all, how can you get a mag like southern living delivered to your house for less than 75 cents an issue? And they can mostly deliver in as good a timeline as UPS, sometimes better to certain areas.

But if the item is heavy or is valuable, its UPS or FDX.

So while I prefer UPS myself, the customer is the one that needs to choose.

As for Free SHipping, really???????UPS ships for free????? Tell me how that works? Its a gimick. Their prices are higher, but they offer free shipping. Just like the guys that offer flat rate shipping

d

 

[rod]

"Cheapest way" has always been the choice of most shippers- excluding high value items. 90% of the time a day or 2 extra on road time isn't the end of the world. Fortunately with the "Slacker generation" running the show now everything is usually put off until the last moment- enter UPS or FedEx.

 

[driver x]

One way to help with the cost is to always mark the delivery as BUSINESS.

 

[dannyboy]

DX

But that would be dishonest. I expect those companies I deal with to deal with me honestly, as I would deal with them.

IF you are going to be dishonest, why not just put one pound on each package, that would save tons of money.

d

 

[BigBrownSanta]

DX

But that would be dishonest. I expect those companies I deal with to deal with me honestly, as I would deal with them.

IF you are going to be dishonest, why not just put one pound on each package, that would save tons of money.

d

It's funny you said that. Just today I had 3 boxes that had to be at least 4 ft x 6 ft. The weight on these boxes was 22 lbs.

I wonder how much money UPS loses on oversize packages, not just from the shipper not claiming the OS but by the amount of time it takes me to deliver the packages or the time I spend trying to work around those packages.

 

[satellitedriver]

My wife handles shipping for an internet business.
It really is a juggling act to determine which way to ship and maintain profit.
I just asked my wife, as I was reading this thread, if she ships overseas very often with UPS.
She said, if they request UPS and are willing to pay the shipping, otherwise it goes USPS.
Canada almost always goes UPS.
Hawaii and Alaska goes USPS most times.
She ships out about 1,500 pkgs a day, worldwide.
I had a UPS account manager call on them and UPS lowered their rate and UPS now has about 10% of their volume, instead of 1%.

 

[Harley Rider]

It's funny you said that. Just today I had 3 boxes that had to be at least 4 ft x 6 ft. The weight on these boxes was 22 lbs.

I wonder how much money UPS loses on oversize packages, not just from the shipper not claiming the OS but by the amount of time it takes me to deliver the packages or the time I spend trying to work around those packages.

A few years ago before I left our main center, they hired 2 part time people to come in and audit packages at night. They would look for oversize and overweight pkgs. Then check them against p/u sheets. This was back when we were still on paper p/u records. They found thousands of dollars a week in revenue that the customer never would have been charged for. They sure enough easily paid for their wages. I don't know if this is done at main sorting centers anywhere but I bet the amt. of lost revenue would be mind boggling nationwide.

 

[brownmonster]

We have revenue auditors for both air and ground. They easily pay for themselves in gained revenue.

 

[satellitedriver]

It's funny you said that. Just today I had 3 boxes that had to be at least 4 ft x 6 ft. The weight on these boxes was 22 lbs.

I wonder how much money UPS loses on oversize packages, not just from the shipper not claiming the OS but by the amount of time it takes me to deliver the packages or the time I spend trying to work around those packages.

Call Tags,
1lb on the tag, 100lb box.
I cancel the Call Tag.
If the weight doesn't match, I do not pickup.
It is just a way that people are trying to game the system.
I hate thieves and that is what they are.

 

[BigBrownSanta]

That's interesting Sat.

I wasn't aware we could cancel a call tag for the weight being wrong. I'm going to have to check into that.

 

[dilligaf]

SD we can do that? I have had p/u's where I knew darned good and well that the weight wasn't right but I picked it up anyway. I'm still learning all the little nuances of this business we call UPS........

 

[dannyboy]

We have revenue auditors for both air and ground. They easily pay for themselves in gained revenue.

Yes they do. But at what cost.

We had a large firm that did many thousands of dollars worth of shipping through us every day. Mostly NDA letters. Gravy, as most went to courthouses throughout the USA.

For about a month, they kept getting "revenue enhancements" on the letters, the auditors were weighing the letters and charging by the pound. In many cases, the upcharge was 3-5 times what the letter cost. Because of UPS's slow response to the issue, we lost them to FEDEX. I dont know if they ever really got it straight or not. IT was costing the company more than 8 grand extra a week in shipping.

Everybody knows, as long as it is paper work, and it will fit in a letter envelope, it goes by the letter charge, not the weight. But someone didnt tell the people doing the upcharge.

Problem with revenue auditors that do not work for UPS, but are subed out with the promise of future employment if they "produce", is that there are many upcharges that should not be made as well.

d

There are many boxes that go through our system that are marked not oversize per UPS corp, and that goes to show that it has been a problem for quite a while.

d

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Sat, rather than cancel the call tag, may I suggest that you complete the pickup and then bring the package in and give it one of the PM clerks and ask them to do a Revenue Recovery on the pkg. I do this whenever I have a large discrepancy such as the one that you described or whenever I have a shipper who completes one shipping label and then makes copies of it for the remaining boxes in the shipment.

I would like to see UPS change the program to where the driver who brings pkgs/call tags to be revenue corrected be given a percentage of the money recovered (10%?) as an incentive to use the program.

 

[dannyboy]

A percentage? I would have just loved not to have been ignored.

d

 

[BigBrownSanta]

I asked my OCS about cancelling a call tag that was under weight and was told to pick it up and have a revenue recovery person charge the shipper.

SatelliteDriver may have different procedures due to his unique situation of never having to return to a hub.