UPS better than Postal Service for my business?

International shipping

[Polo75]

Hi Everyone,

I send souvenirs from Paris, France.
All products are sent from Paris, France to USA.
Average shipping cart is 80 US$.

I had recent discussions with UPS who proposes me good prices based on quantities for shipping.

I wonder if I add UPS as shipping method, would this bring me new customers?

Thanks a lot for helping.

[jbinbpt]

If your target customers are in the US, then yes it's a good thing. UPS is highly regarded. The general preception here is when packages enter the postal service system anywhere, it's a big black hole. Most of the times it works but often it does not.

jb

[corbing]

Be sure to ask UPS what, if anything, they will be charging the person receiving the merchandise in the US. UPS likes to charge what they call a "brokerage fee" for international shipments. These usually work out to somewhere between USD $25 and $45. We used to use UPS for shipping from the US to Canada but stopped becuase we had so many packages returned from customers not happy and not willing to pay the brokerage fee on top of the shipping charges and tax.

[j_h_maccann]

Definitely, for shipments to the US use UPS only and
completely avoid the US Postal Service. It is difficult
for a European to understand how completely broken the
US Postal Service is, particularly in the large coastal
cities.

Amazon.com tells me that, for US domestic shipments,
they use only UPS to "any state that touches water" and
use both UPS and the Postal Service for some land-locked
Middle Western states. I personally will only order from US
websites that explicitly state they always ship by UPS
(or FedEx) and do not use the US Postal Service; most
large ecommerce sites meet that standard (or even when they
don't say it, the tip-off is "no shipments to P.O. Boxes",
since the Postal Service will only permit itself to deliver
to its P.O. Boxes).

UPS offers truly superlative service, both to merchants and
to their customers, and can deliver to any US street address. UPS
has effectively become the "privatized post office" for large
American cities; it even has a network of "UPS Stores" which
offer services like post offices.

This whole situation is completely different to the UK or Europe.
I've lived half-time in the UK and half-time in America for the
last ten years, and the contrast is amazing. There is no way
to imagine how bad the US Postal Service is until you see it in
action.

[hfwd]

Don't forget that if you ship any food items to the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now requires you to fill a pre-notification alert called "Prior Notice" before you send that item, even if you send it via postal mail.

[corbing]

Those are j_h_maccann personal experiences and opinions.

We ship thousands of packages per month and approximately 65% of them go via USPS and 35% via UPS. Last month the USPS lost 0.2% of the packages that they carried for us. UPS did not lose any packages but we had a damage rate of 0.4% with UPS (0% damage rate with USPS).

In addition, for packages in the 1-3 pound range, UPS costs about 20%-30% more and takes much longer for delivery.

[lgn1]

We used USPS to ship goods into the USA for years, and had very few problems.

I believe the perception that USPS sucks is an urban myth.

The big difference between USPS and couriers, is that
USPS only provides delivery confirmation, rather than true tracking.

However regardless, if either USPS or UPS loses your parcel, it doesn't make much difference, if your parcel is lost somewhere in the USA with USPS or somewhere in California with complete UPS tracking.

A lost parcel is ussually lost, or at the very least delayed for a considerable amount of time.

Maybe someday, you will be able to buy dirt cheap single chip GPS emitters, and you will know where your parcel is at all time. (ie. yes sir, your parcel is located under the wheels of forklift #14, in our Albany warehouse :)

[Polo75]

Hi Everyone,

I thank you for your answers.

So, perharps the best solution is to propose to customers both choices:
Postal priority service and UPS so they can decide.

Do you think it could be a good solution?

Thanks for helping. Paul

[Rugles]

>>>I believe the perception that USPS sucks is an urban myth.

I am with you on that one. Considering the massive quantity they move in a day, I would imagine the failure rate is similar the the couriers. Try Canada Post if you want to see poor service for parcels.

However, that being said, we do use UPS nearly exclusively. Our customers do prefer it, so the perception that UPS is better than USPS is definately a reality.

[HRoth]

I too use USPS for shipping and in fact have made it rule never to use UPS because they are overpriced, slow, don't provide free packaging, the clerks in the UPS stores don't know anything, and you have to pay your bill with a check. But another possibility to consider when shipping from Europe to the US is a courier service. If the value of the merchandise is less than $200 and it is sent by courier, it does not have to go through US Customs. This cuts down on time in transit quite a bit.

However, I have found that FedEx Freight, for example, has drastically different prices for shipping between country X and the US depending on whether the person paying for the service is in the US or abroad. For instance, I imported some stuff from Oman, and if I had paid for the shipping here, it would have cost me $440. From there, it cost $110.

DHL is a lot cheaper than FedEx. There are others that are also cheaper.

[hfwd]

it is sent by courier, it does not have to go through US Customs.

Oh, no - they do have to go through US customs. However, these big courier companies have their own custom brokerage units that handle that in-house.

[HRoth]

You cut off the important part of that statement: "If the value of the merchandise is less than $200, it doesn't have to go through Customs." FedEx told me this themselves.

[creepychris]

As one poster has already said. UPS is bad for international shipping because of their extortionist 'brokerage' charges. Fine if you know up front but what happens is you've already paid shipping and handling to the vendor (and thought it was completely taken care of), but when the package arrives you have to pay an added sum, which is often very high.

As a real life example, I bought a geologists rock hammer online for about $30.00. I had to pay $18.00 shipping and handling to UPS, but when the item showed up, I had to pay another $23.00 brokerage charge. $4.50 of that charge was Canadian taxes but the other $17.00 dollars went straight to the pockets of UPS. Huh? I thought I just paid you $18.00 to deliver it to my house? Man was I peaved. Canada post (packages going by US Post) also charges a brokerage fee, but it is a fraction of the cost of UPS.

[Rugles]

>>>You cut off the important part of that statement: "If the value of the merchandise is less than $200, it doesn't have to go through Customs." FedEx told me this themselves.

It does go through US Customs, you just do not require a broker. Customs can stop and search the package (which I am happens to a certain percentage) and make sure everything is ok. Nothing enters the US, legally, without Customs knowing about it.

[hfwd]

Yup, everything goes through customs if it crosses the border. It's up to customs to check or let it go without checking. If you send food stuff to the US, the FDA has to be notified beforehand.

[HRoth]

Courier companies have an arrangement with Customs that if the value of the shipped items is less than $200, it does not have to be inspected by Customs agents. Why would FedEx tell me this if it were not true? It is more than once that they told me that if I do not want trouble with something going through Customs and being held up because it doesn't have an international tariff number on it, that the declared value must be less than $200. I first ran into this with a shipment with a value of $202.10.

[jsinger]

I believe the perception that USPS sucks is an urban myth.

I agree

For decades we've used US mail to send vital reports among branches of our company. I can recall only one instance of our intra-company mail being lost. UPS has lost a number of packages over the years. I only wish our web commerce efforts were 99.99% percent accurate as well.

During the UPS strike about 10 years ago, the Postal Service was able to take over the nation's package delivery needs very impressively.

True, we've known a few mailmen who probably couldn't hold a job elsewhere. Remember the phrase: "Going Postal," which referred to the former tendency of US postal workers to shoot up the workplace occasionally.

Still the USPS does a darn good job. We use it mostly when something must go out or be received on Saturday or sent to the Pacific Ocean where UPS is very costly.

[bcolflesh]

There is no way to imagine how bad the US Postal Service is until you see it in action.

You must not see much action - I can honestly say I've worked with almost every postal system on Earth - nothing can touch the USPS for volume/services/reliability as opposed to the rest of the world. Folks here think "it sucks" because they've never experienced any other system, or they are frustrated by their own bad planning.

[jsinger]

We could reliably and quickly send a small package from Maine to Hawaii for about $5 by mail. The USPS isn't subsidized anymore by taxpayers, I believe.

The US is a huge place compared to W. Europe, and the population is widely dispersed, unlike Canada where most people live in a few urban areas.