USPS Parcel Select Ground Sevice Delivery Time Is Ok

[berserkerplanet]

Just an FYI:

Shipped a 4 pound USPS Parcel Select Ground* pkg from California to Indiana (zone 😎 on afternoon of Wed 10/25/17 and was delivered morning of Mon 10/30/17. Not bad. Priority might have made it there Saturday, and Smartpost likely would have been this coming Wed.

Tracking number for anyone interested: 9461209699939375469646

*rarely ship Parcel Select, but do offer it on some listings as an option along with Smartpost, FedEx Home Delivery, and Priority, and don't know why buyer chose it and paid 65% more than Smartpost would have been. Must have had his reasons or eBay isn't showing all shipping options at checkout. Something I need to look into, but my purchases never have multiple calculated shipping options to be able to see.

I think it even made it through the infamous Bell Garden blackhole in Southern California, but can't be sure now - thought I saw it on the tracking late last week, but USPS appears to be going back and changing wording on tracking entries after the fact and it just shows "Los Angeles CA Network Distribution Center"

[marlys96013]

I just became a victim of the Bell Gardens Black Hole Post Office!!  Shipped an eBay package from Burney, CA to New Jersey.  It left my little town on 2/26, went to Sacramento and then to a Los Angeles distribution center.  Then for 3 days in a row all I can see thru eBay is enroute to next destination.  I went into the post office yesterday and the lady said she could get me a little more info.  She came back to the counter and said your package is someplace called Bell Gardens.  I looked into where Bell Gardens is and found an article from the LA Times in 2013 about how horrible this place is.  Then I went to Yelp and found more bad things written about it.  WHY IN THE WORLD DOES THE USPS KEEP THIS PLACE OPEN????  I read another post from someone who shipped a laptop between 2 locations on the EAST coast, but her package went to Richmond, CA (VERY high crime) and then to the Bell Gardens black hole.  This is ridiculous.  Going forward I will use UPS or Fed Ex until they close this place.

[thallidguy]

Bell Gardens is a black hole precisely because it's such an important hub — a whole lot of traffic goes through it. It's centrally located, pretty much at the geographical center of Los Angeles County. Problems with USPS distribution facilities like this are  linked to the sheer volume of traffic they handle. More traffic, more problems, and they also get overworked from time to time.

Closing Bell Gardens would actually make things much worse, as the traffic would have to be rerouted, and to facilities that are even less prepared to handle it.

[berserkerplanet]

As thallidguy said, it is a major hub, will have proportionally more problems due to the pkg volume, and there's very little chance of USPS closing it.

I've never had any issues with it (or any other hub for that matter).

[partial*eclipse]

The LA Times article is 5 years old, and the original thread that you dug up is nearly 6 months old and says that their experience with Bell was OK.  So IMHO you shouldn't be generalizing to the whole USPS system due to this one misadventure. As noted in the other post, the sorting center at Bell Gardens is still open because somebody needs to handle the mail for LA.