USPS nixing international flats as a shipping method for anything but documents

[WormBoy]

This change aligns with the Universal Postal Union(UPU) Integrated Product Plan (IPP) which will require that format P (letters) and format G (flats) may contain only documents, not goods.

Interesting ... that in this respect the US is apparently at the forefront of adhering to international agreements. In Europe, I have not encountered this rule yet. I regularly order components (incl. 3pdt switches and jacks) from Germany, and up to a several hundred grammes they arrive in a letter for about 3 Euro. If that stops, this will become a very expensive hobby indeed ...

[WormBoy]

For those of you outside the US, what kind of shipping rates do you typically pay for PCBs when ordering inside of Europe, Australia, etc.?

It is usually weight based, and it is not always clear whether you pay for handling as well. For PBCs/small kits from TH Customs (Germany), I (Netherlands) pay 2-4 Euro (2.45-4.90 USD). FuzzDog (UK) is more expensive with postage; around 3.75-4.50 pounds (5.20-6.30 USD) for 3-5 PCBs and sometimes some small parts. Unfortunately, a large fraction of the nice-PCB-projects-for-DIY-guitarists is located in the US ... Time to move the order processing to Canada or Mexico  .

[madbean]

Yes you have to call to activate it.

So, I am confused. The email I received said the second/new account is complimentary yet the sign-up says it is a free 30 day trial for Endicia Pro. Did you notice this?

[gtr2]

Yes you have to call to activate it.

So, I am confused. The email I received said the second/new account is complimentary yet the sign-up says it is a free 30 day trial for Endicia Pro. Did you notice this?

When I talked to tech support he said he was making it free, but I will be watching...

[Haberdasher]

Yes you have to call to activate it.

So, I am confused. The email I received said the second/new account is complimentary yet the sign-up says it is a free 30 day trial for Endicia Pro. Did you notice this?

Yes you have to call to activate it.

So, I am confused. The email I received said the second/new account is complimentary yet the sign-up says it is a free 30 day trial for Endicia Pro. Did you notice this?

Yeah, there was conflicting info in there.  It said there would be no extra fees, $0.00/month, but also said free trial period.  I'm going to address the issue when I call later.

[madbean]

Esp. considering the "free month" actually gets charged to you if you stick with the service! G'ah.

[gordo]

Geez, remember the old days when all you had to worry about was making great boards?

[Freppo]

A (going) postal report from Sweden...

* Since I started selling PCB's, little over two years ago, the cost for international letters has raised from 12,50 SEK to 21 SEK. Almost double the cost! The domestic postage has also been raised alot which has made people seeing red...

* At the same time the quality of the post service has gone from good to very bad. Delays/increased shipping times, a much higher % of lost packages, non-working online services, notifications of recieved packages not being sent out, damaged packages and so on.

* Lately I've been getting more and more returns without any obvious reason. Adresses, customs declaration, sufficient postage ect, all checks out.

* Any kind of traceable shipping method has become so expensive so I haven't even bothered adding it as an option in my shop.

* It's actually often much cheaper (the shipping cost) for me to order stuff from other EU countries, than if I order stuff from within Sweden...

* The swedish post (Postnord) has now decided to add a 120 SEK (around 15 USD) cost (a "handling fee") to ALL shipments coming from asia, no matter how small. Every single package will also be charged with 25% import tax. This will force me to raise the cost of the PCB's and it will make shopping from tayda/ebay ect. not longer worth it.

Even though this will have a negative effect on me personally I still think it's a good thing though as it will keep people from buying cheap crap from Wish/Alibaba. Sweden has around 150 000 packages arriving from China every day and I'm sure that kind of shopping is unsustainable for our planet... It's also probably a major contributing factor why the post service has become so poor.

* The swedish people are so unhappy with Postnord that threats and assaults against their employees has become common and someone even made an mobile app called Postmord (post-murder) which is a game where you throw packages until they break (it's pretty funny actually).

* Sweden doesn't have post offices... Since Postnord became a privatly owned company (in 1994, before that it was owned by the state) all packages are picked up/sent out at grochery stores and handled by the grochery store employees.

* I live around 20 minutes by car from the nearest supermarket/post. It's a very small town so their opening hours are very limited. All other shipping curiers are too far away so I have no choice but to use Postnord.

Sorry for the long rant...

[Rockhorst]

Sweden sounds a lot like the Netherlands, although shipping cost is still very manageable here. Reading all this, it seems a matter of not if but when that's going to change.

[Rockhorst]

Actually, I'm going to take back my previous statement. After privatizing Dutch postal services in the late 90s (I think) it was a bit of a mess for a decade or so. Lots of name changes, less delivery days, exploiting employees by forcing them to be a small business themselves (sort of subcontracting). But currently, everything seems to be working quite well. The reason for this is that there still is regulatory oversight from the government. Stuff actually got fixed, holes plugged.

Post offices are gone but there's enough small book/office/grocery shops around that can handle the work. Delivery is usually very dependent and prices are reasonable and purely weight based. One thing to note is that the post and package services have split up into two different companies. If Dutch postal services start discriminating between documents and small goods, they would be shooting themselves in the foot, going into another spiral of financial losses. And I think they realize this all too well.

And indeed, I do suspect that if I make a deal with the postal services over here to send a pcb to the States...USPS will have to delivery it. If volumes are big enough, they'll probably start pressurizing other postal companies to follow the same rules...let's see how that pans out in the next couple of years.

[gtr2]

I still have yet to have my Global shipping option activated.  Looks like I am calling Endicia again today...

[Haberdasher]

I still have yet to have my Global shipping option activated.  Looks like I am calling Endicia again today...

When you're on hold with these guys, do you get music or a recorded message?  I'm just getting dead silence.

[Haberdasher]

Finally got through.  They said it would take 24-48 hrs for GAP to activate, and assured me I wouldn't be charged extra.
Fingers crossed!

[gtr2]

Finally got through.  They said it would take 24-48 hrs for GAP to activate, and assured me I wouldn't be charged extra.
Fingers crossed!

Are you using Dazzle or Endicia Pro?
I never got an email that it was activated and when I called today they said it had been activated.
Then I was on the line with "tech help" who wanted to remotely access my computer (which I denied) because the new label formatting is cutting parts of the international address.  It's putting the entire international address on just two lines in the tiny SHIP TO: section and then the Postal Processing Facility address is in the normal spot that a domestic package would be.
He was insisting it is my label printer driver, but it prints the same thing on a regular piece of paper.  It truncates the international address...

Then he said just use dazzle, but I don't think you can do the international flats from there.  He said I could...after he said I can't ship merchandise with international flats    So I mentioned, um...that's why I had to sign up for the global advantage.... I'm super frustrated...

[Haberdasher]

Finally got through.  They said it would take 24-48 hrs for GAP to activate, and assured me I wouldn't be charged extra.
Fingers crossed!

Are you using Dazzle or Endicia Pro?
I never got an email that it was activated and when I called today they said it had been activated.
Then I was on the line with "tech help" who wanted to remotely access my computer (which I denied) because the new label formatting is cutting parts of the international address.  It's putting the entire international address on just two lines in the tiny SHIP TO: section and then the Postal Processing Facility address is in the normal spot that a domestic package would be.
He was insisting it is my label printer driver, but it prints the same thing on a regular piece of paper.  It truncates the international address...

Then he said just use dazzle, but I don't think you can do the international flats from there.  He said I could...after he said I can't ship merchandise with international flats    So I mentioned, um...that's why I had to sign up for the global advantage.... I'm super frustrated...

I'd previously been using dazzle, but understood that I had to sign up for Endicia Pro in order to use the GAP service, so that's what I just set up.  I'm really not sure if the person I spoke with was tech support or not, but I can tell you the acct # she wanted was the new one for endicia pro.
OK, I just tried test printing a label and mine is the same way.  I think that's the way it's meant to be though.  Here's the example label I get in the endicia pro pop up notification.  Is this how your label looks?



FWIW, I never got an email either, but it looks like mine is ready to roll right now.  I guess I'm just going to have to try it out and hope for the best...