USPS Ground Advantage

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Amazon compiles their orders and flys them on an Amazon plane to Honolulu or Kona.  From there it’s handed off to USPS.  Will we be charged the new mainland rate, or a local rate?

[Punatang]

Good question.  What about this - until now, if a package was 15.99 ounces or less it went by air and quickly got where it was going.  We shipped an item to Miami that was 12 OZ.  Cost was very low and it got there in three days.  If  the package weighs 16 ounces or more, it ends up on a barge and arrives with cobwebs on it.

Is that going to change as well?

[terracore]

Amazon compiles their orders and flys them on an Amazon plane to Honolulu or Kona.  From there it’s handed off to USPS.  Will we be charged the new mainland rate, or a local rate?

Amazon has negotiated rates and services with USPS.  They don't pay commoner rates.

In some areas, the USPS delivers Amazon packages on Sundays.  Yes, right to the customer's doors.

[punikahakaiferret]

Some stuff on Amazon comes Parcel Select, which is quicker, but stuff that is sold on Amazon by other sellers often use Ground Advantage...and often there is no way to tell until it's too late and your item is in the great black hole of "Maybe it will show up in a month or so".

For this reason, I pretty much abandoned Amazon last month after they pissed me off for the last time, and now I'm going with Walmart+ and Target360. So far there's been a few hiccups, but by and large I've been much happier with them and product delivery thru USPS, UPS and even FedEx(!), plus I can get stuff delivered right to my door from the store the same day. Yay for way less trips to Hilo!

[terracore]

...there is no way to tell until it's too late and your item is in the great black hole of "Maybe it will show up in a month or so".

The dreaded SAN FRANCISCO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER

[kalianna]

My missing package from USPS ground finally showed up one month and two days after it was shipped.

[Punatang]

Terracore posted: The dreaded SAN FRANCISCO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER

What is the story there?  Based on things I've ordered, it seems like they are consolidating orders for planned mass shipments.  Amazon will have some wildly off future delivery date.  USPS tracking will show a delivery date that is sooner, but still weeks out - after it quickly arrives at "the dreaded" SFDC.  The USPS, weeks out delivery date is always dead on. That date is when it arrives.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

I swear this is true.
We ordered plant food from Amazon Monday morning, it was delivered today (Tuesday) with the afternoon mail.

[Obie]

dreaded SAN FRANCISCO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER


I've always thought that they packed shipping containers and then when they had enough for a discount from Madsen, they would all go out on the same sailing. Maybe they wait until they can fill an entire container ship just to get the best price.

[terracore]

dreaded SAN FRANCISCO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER


I've always thought that they packed shipping containers and then when they had enough for a discount from Madsen, they would all go out on the same sailing. Maybe they wait until they can fill an entire container ship just to get the best price.

Back in the day, a postal worker explained to me that parcel post worked that way.  They tetrised them into a shipping container until it was full, and then it got on the next sailing. If your package was on the bottom of that container with tons of other packages sitting on top of it, then better pray it was packaged well enough to withstand it.  

I can imagine that Ground Disadvantage works similarly, though the packages don't show up as mutilated and crushed as they did back in the parcel post days. 

Crazy thing about ground disadvantage is that if it avoids the dreaded San Francisco facility, it doesn't take much longer than Priority Mail to get here.  But if it goes there, it adds about a month.

In case anybody is wondering, I've recently been mailing a lot of documents to Oregon. I've been using a mix of first class mail (less than a dollar), Priority mail flat rate envelope (about $13), and Express priority mail flat rate envelope (about $31).  These are commercial rates so you would pay more at the counter. They all take ~5 days to get there.  There is literally no difference in the delivery time between $1 and $31.  The only difference is that priority and express priority have tracking information.  But the tracking information between priority and express priority isn't any different.  USPS used to offer a refund if express priority didn't get to the destination within a specified timeframe, but now they only offer a refund if the item is never delivered.  They also don't deliver on Sundays or holidays anymore under most circumstances, and never at the $31 tier.  Basically, the only difference between less than a dollar and over $30 is that the recipient sees that you paid more money to ship it.