Box dimensions on shipping label?
Hello! I’ve been selling on eBay for about 3 months. I almost always ship via USPS ground advantage and have never had any issues until today. Today my local post office employee stated that the box dimensions are required to be printed on the shipping label. She would not accept the label that I printed after purchasing through eBay. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a solution or trick to printing the dimensions that maybe I missed?? Thanks!!
8 comments
richard1rst
·2 years agoI just printed a bunch of labels and none of them show a dimension EXCEPT on those packages that are priced as cubic pricing. And even there the dimension is a rounded off figure. The box at 7x7x6 is actually .17 cubic feet, but the label shows .20.
As an aside, I once had a clerk try to refuse to accept a first class international package and she measured it as length plus girth. Now I am sure most of you know that is correct for internal priority but first class is length plus width plus height. She refused the packager AND refused to consider that she was doing it wrong. Fortunately I am well known at my post office so I simply caught the eye of the next clerk over and asked her for help. Interestingly, Janet pointed out that I knew the regulation better than most. Problem solved.
The point being that counter clerks are NOT trained in online postage. Remember a few years back when they upped online first class to 15.9 ounces? These boards were filled with stories of clerks refusing the packages and trying to charge extra postage. Lack of training. Same thing here.
Ask for the post master.
beansmomma
OP2 years agoI drove about 7 miles down to the next post office and had no issues dropping the packages off. It’s just a pain to drive further than I should have to!
richard1rst
·2 years agoThen don't. Use your regular post office and ask for the post master. The clerk is galactically wrong.
fern*wood
·2 years agoHow large was your box? I know the dims show up on oversized boxes, so maybe they thought you underpaid.
beansmomma
OP2 years agoI don’t think it was very large. It was 14 inches by 9 inches by 5 or 6 inches. I’ve used this size many times in the past… no clue!
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoWell, they're not required. eBay shipping labels are produced by USPS's approved partner, Pitney Bowes, and they know better than the PO clerk regarding label requirements. It's not as if you designed that label yourself.
Any time a bureaucrat informs me about an unreasonable rule, I ask to see proof in writing.
ferncliff-39
·2 years ago@beansmomma
the only time I've seen the box dimensions printed on the label was when the postage was calculated as DIM wt for an oversized package.
You may want to ask on the Shipping board - this sounds like a USPS employee issue, not a Tech issue.
(Mods moved it from the Tech Issues board)
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping/bd-p/shipping-returns-db
ltldpr
·2 years agoI've never been told that by my postal clerks.
I shipped 2 Ground Advantage pkgs today, and honestly couldn't tell you what the labels said, other than my address & the buyers' addresses lol.
I know that the receipt shows the weight, but there are no dimensions listed on the receipt. I'd be tempted to just hand write it on a blank spot of the label and then insist that the receipt reflect the dimensions too. (I don't advise doing that - it's just something that I would be tempted to do, since they're being a bleep head, I'd be one too.)