USPS vs UPS

[writingblog341]

Hi there!

I'm a seller, and on a lot of my listings, I charge a flat UPS rate for shipping. For the past 4 months, I set UPS to my default shipper and charge $9.99 on average for a small UPS Ground parcel, containing anything between a Nintendo DS game to a light laptop, reason being that after a series of extremely problematic delays, the most notable being 21-day delay on an Apple Watch from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan using First Class, moreover so after receiving massive discounts on UPS and FedEx.

I want to know what other sellers use for shipping and how they go about their policy of stuff. Using UPS Ground or FedEx/UPS 2Day has been amazing as a seller, especially when buyer pays. Sometimes, my customers purchase DVDs and are okay with a $9.99 shipping cost via UPS or FedEx. Are your buyers always looking for the cheapest possible shipping price, or are your buyers okay with paying a higher shipping cost if they get their item faster and higher reliability standards?

Thanks!

[pooh333piglet]

I feel like in selling for 20 yrs 90% or higher of my buyers want cheap shipping. I've always been a fast n cheap or reasonable shipper so its rarely an issue. 

I know I wouldn't want to pay $10 shipping for a game when it can mail for around $4. As a seller I would rather charge $5-6 and pocket the extra.

I guess it depends on the time of year too (Christmas) and how USPS is functioning. 

[disneyshopper]

I ship exclusively by USPS nowadays as the items I am selling are averaging about 1 pound or less.  Other items might approach up to 4 pounds, and I can use a regional rate A box to save money.  Besides, I can go to 4 post offices depending on what else I am doing that day.  The UPS Store, and Fed Ex location are located in areas I don't usually drive by.

[no_zero369 · Accepted solution]

eh, most buyers are cheap!  They want to pay Media Mail rates for Overnight Delivery.  Only on expensive items do buyers start to care about the delivery method.

I play with shipping options from time to time and especially on listing for the same item when I have multiples and separate listings.  Do it to see if there is any hard evidence of buyer preference  - if the shipping method leads to more sales one way or another.

[writingblog341]

Yeah. Thanks for the feedback! I usually appeal to the trigger happy customer instead of the lowball buyer. With 5 months of fiddling, UPS always is my preference instead of USPS. 

[writingblog341]

thanks for the response! I can see why you would prefer USPS, but since FedEx and UPS boxes and stores are much more common than USPS offices, plus the fact that my local postmaster is a generally shady figure and seems to be always hiding what he’s doing, as well as the fact that FedEx has a MASSIVE ship center within a 15 minute drive, the leader in overnight and the men in brown will almost always beat the mail for me unless I pay $50+ for express. Even then, I get overnight rates for $40.00 on nearly all 1-5 lb items, sometimes even less!

[no_zero369]

@writingblog341 

Yeah, like what you shared!  I think your experience is useful for some to take note. 

I guess many get in a rut with "one way" of doing things and that is a shame.  So your experience tinkering with shipping lead you to one route.  Each seller's circumstance is different so there is no one "right way!"  but without some trial and error one can't always make that determination!

Certainly having FedEx in proximity helped in making your plan.  And of course, the more your ship, the lower the rates go!

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[southern*sweet*tea]

I use USPS exclusively. I charge a flat $3.50 or $3.75 to ship a piece of paper. Nobody complains.

I don't want buyers looking for cheap, I want buyers looking for good.

[kosmosattik]

UPS offers discounted shipping rates, sometimes quite significant, on the label printing page.  Their rates on that page can be much lower than what is shown when creating a listing.  On a recent sale, the UPS Ground price on the label print screen was significantly cheaper than the same service at the time of creating the listing.  Further, it was even significantly cheaper than the cheapest shipping option when I created the listing (USPS Parcel Select Ground). 

How the heck am I supposed to pick the most economical shipping method and pass the cost on to the buyer if I can't see what it is until after the sale?  Is there some trick to this?  How does seeing the UPS discount only after a sale make any sense?

[writingblog341]

I think it's in eBay user preferences. I forget the exact path, but it's in there somewhere to show UPS discount calculated prices. Either that or I charge a flat nationwide rate and use a Third party service like Shippo.