Delivery Confirmation required

[aron]

I'm thinking that for US orders, I will post a surcharge for delivery confirmation. The delivery confirmation system is getting better and better so I believe it is time to start making it a required item. Let me know if you have any concerns about this, otherwise I will put it into effect shortly.

[Jdansti]

I think it's a great idea! 

[aron]

Yeah I have to do it after talking to PayPal.

Thanks!!!

[aron]

So now I go to ship and USPS tells me it's now included with packages in the USA.

[Jdansti]

Even better!

I've noticed that the USPS tracking and delivery confirmation has gotten better over the last year.  Part of the reason might be that USPS has a deal with UPS where UPS delivers the package to the local post office, and USPS makes the final delivery. The two delivery services would have to have integrated tracking systems to do this.

As a side note, I learned of this from the UPS driver that delivers to my office, and he said that the postal workers were not happy about having to deliver UPS packages.

[aron]

It's so weird. Last week, the lady tells me that only priority mail includes delivery confirmation. Then she charges me 90 cents for it. This week, they tell me that my packages will include it for free.
Oh well, we will see.

[Jdansti]

Ben Franklin had a good idea when he started the postal service, and it's been fairly reliable and cheap all along. But now it's heavily in debt and has been slow to implement new technology.  They just announced that they are going to discontinue Saturday delivery.  When I spoke to the UPS driver about the USPS delivering some of the packages for UPS, he told me that sometimes the postal workers refuse to let UPS trucks into their gate to transfer packages to the USPS for delivery.

I've had a problem with the USPS at my office. We have a mailbox outside of our motorized gate and I've given our mailman a code to open the gate so he can come in and deliver packages that are too big for the mailbox. He's been very friendly and always brings large packages into the office. However, when he's off, his replacements return large packages to the post office. Sometimes they leave a note, but usually they don't. When they do leave a note and we go to the post office to pick up the package, they can't find it and we spend several days trying to claim the package. Sometimes it gets delivered a couple of weeks later when our mailman returns, and sometimes it gets sent back to the sender. I've stopped having personal packages delivered to my office and just take a chance that nothing will be stolen from my porch when USPS delivers while I'm at work.

Unless they just changed the rules, your recent experience demonstrates the squirreliness of the current service.