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

[BuGG]

It's been over a week since I did my test package to Canada and still not a single update in tracking.

Same here.  Now I have customers emailing me concerned because USPS shows that their package hasn't even shipped. 

It wouldn't be quite as bad if USPS tracking would at least acknowledge that they had received the shipments. 

I'm going to leave the "flat" option open for now, but definitely going to encourage First-Class Package shipping.

[diablochris6]

It's been over a week since I did my test package to Canada and still not a single update in tracking.

Same here.  Now I have customers emailing me concerned because USPS shows that their package hasn't even shipped. 

It wouldn't be quite as bad if USPS tracking would at least acknowledge that they had received the shipments. 

Maybe it's just an international shipping thing, but when I ship a Tayda order through USPS, I don't get any status notifications until the last couple days of shipping when the package hits stateside.

[pickdropper]

With the rise of eBay, Alibaba, Amazon, small Bean and JMK shops and the like, I'm surprised that int'l shipping hasn't gotten easier with more packages overall moving around.

Oldschool letters (as in written letters, victorian style) dropping like a lead balloon yes, but packages and flats have increased a great deal, surely?

And that is the problem. The UPU has taken the flood of dirt cheap internationally shipped small "packages" as a threat to domestic interests. They see people buying all their stuff from China/etc and came to the conclusion that "oh hey, that money should all be spent in-state, this is getting quite silly" and have taken steps to rectify the matter. (Particularly because that dirt cheap shipping is payed for in a strangely roundabout way such that the recipient country essentially subsidizes the entire shipping cost... sort of. Its a logistical mess)

And since the UPU only convenes every 2 years to make decisions the ramifications are going to suck in the near term.

As much as I hate this, I would honestly suggest every US small business owner who is affected by this nonsense to contact their congresspeople. Our current administration loves to pretend its giving a damn, and touting a "win" for small businesses by ordering the USPS to screw the UPU's rules would be right up their alley. Easy political currency.

Won't that accomplish the exact opposite?  It's still very cheap and easy to ship packages from China.  Increases the postage costs on outgoing international shipments just makes it harder to export from the US, which won't help with any trade balance.

[somnif]

Won't that accomplish the exact opposite?  It's still very cheap and easy to ship packages from China.  Increases the postage costs on outgoing international shipments just makes it harder to export from the US, which won't help with any trade balance.

Yeah, hence the selective adoption of the UPU rules does more harm than good. The countries it was meant to "penalize" just ignore it, while the countries which it least affects follow the rules and are screwed over.

[pickdropper]

Won't that accomplish the exact opposite?  It's still very cheap and easy to ship packages from China.  Increases the postage costs on outgoing international shipments just makes it harder to export from the US, which won't help with any trade balance.

Yeah, hence the selective adoption of the UPU rules does more harm than good. The countries it was meant to "penalize" just ignore it, while the countries which it least affects follow the rules and are screwed over.

Indeed.

[aion]

So, some stats... out of 27 international orders sent since 1/22 using the flat relay method, 18 of them have been acknowledged by the facility as either 1) received, 2) completed and passed off to USPS, or 3) already having left the country. But 9 of them are still unaccounted for, going all the way back to January 25th.

And since domestic flats don't have local tracking, there's no recourse for proving that it arrived at the relay facility. So if they don't have their stuff together, I probably can't actually pin them down on anything.

I'm going to get in touch with the help and give them another chance to reassure me that this will all work out, but so far I'm not thoroughly impressed.

[BuGG]

Out of 44 shipments I have two that have reached the destination country, the remaining 42 are unaccounted for....

I'm a few days away from disabling the flats shipping method, at least until this is sorted out.

[JC103]

Out of curiosity... what would happen if you folks shipped international out of Canada?

[alanp]

And that is the problem. The UPU has taken the flood of dirt cheap internationally shipped small "packages" as a threat to domestic interests. They see people buying all their stuff from China/etc and came to the conclusion that "oh hey, that money should all be spent in-state, this is getting quite silly" and have taken steps to rectify the matter. (Particularly because that dirt cheap shipping is payed for in a strangely roundabout way such that the recipient country essentially subsidizes the entire shipping cost... sort of. Its a logistical mess)

It just struck me what this means.

As well as net neutrality, do we have to campaign for package neutrality?

Their job is to ship the packages according to the level of service the customer paid for. Not to make value judgements about the overall flow of packages. If they fucked up their negotiations regarding international shipping, that is on them, not on their customers.

[somnif]

Out of curiosity... what would happen if you folks shipped international out of Canada?

Shipping US to Canada is still considered international.

[reddesert]

I don't think the UPU makes decisions solely based on where people should spend their money or buy local, etc. I think their concern is more about how countries settle up reciprocal shipping costs. I never understood how that was done until reading up on it recently. (Excuse me if I am saying something everyone here knows already.) Basically, when you pay for an international shipment, the money goes to your domestic postal service and the foreign service doesn't get paid directly. Later, the postal services all settle up accounts based on difference in total weight - so if 1000 tons was shipped from China to the US, and 900 tons was shipped from the US to China, China's service pays the US service for the difference, 100 tons of stuff, at some agreed-on rate.

A problem is that not all weight is equal delivery cost. Hypothetically suppose that most of the 1000 tons from China to the US are many small packages weighing 2 oz each like me ordering a Strat jack plate, while the other way is a smaller number of really large packages.  Then the USPS winds up shouldering a larger cost to deliver all those small packages, that it isn't getting adequately reimbursed for.

I think whatever the UPU is doing is eventually intended to address this. I did buy a Strat jack plate from China for $1.29 including shipping, and I think that must be reliant on some artificially-low shipping rate charged in China, while the USPS is essentially delivering it for free over here, and this can't be sustainable. Because I can't even mail a Strat jack plate inside the US for $1.29. It was nice to get a cheapo jack, but at some level it's unfair to both the USPS and US sellers.

[aion]

I think whatever the UPU is doing is eventually intended to address this. I did buy a Strat jack plate from China for $1.29 including shipping, and I think that must be reliant on some artificially-low shipping rate charged in China, while the USPS is essentially delivering it for free over here, and this can't be sustainable. Because I can't even mail a Strat jack plate inside the US for $1.29. It was nice to get a cheapo jack, but at some level it's unfair to both the USPS and US sellers.

"Eventually" is the key word - but since the US agreed to the rules before China did, the balance is off even more than it was before and it makes it even harder for US-based companies to be competitive. So in one sense it actually has the opposite effect. China is still shipping internationally for almost nothing, but it's much harder for US companies to sell internationally. Or even domestically, where we can beat China on transit time but still not price.

[EBK]

Is there a reasonable way to have boards destined for Europe to be fabbed and shipped from inside Europe? In the past, that option may have been ignored due to obvious cost issues, but now....

[Haberdasher]

The 2 packages I mailed Jan 26th just got marked as "Arrived Shipping Partner Facility" yesterday.  Which probably means they've been sitting in the warehouse with thousands & thousands of others for days & days, and they just got scanned in.  I hope this process gets more streamlined as they work the bugs out.  This is a little bit effing ridiculous.

[aion]

The 2 packages I mailed Jan 26th just got marked as "Arrived Shipping Partner Facility" yesterday.  Which probably means they've been sitting in the warehouse with thousands & thousands of others for days & days, and they just got scanned in.  I hope this process gets more streamlined as they work the bugs out.  This is a little bit effing ridiculous.

I just checked again, and of the 9 that had issues two days ago, only 2 of them have been scanned in. I haven't heard back from support on the matter yet, so I resent my email.