E-Commerce's Biggest Obstacle May Be Slow Postal Services (thestreet.com) 237
Long-time Slashdot reader rudy_wayne writes:
J.C. Penney CEO Marvin Ellison recently said that e-commerce companies' biggest challenge is that they are all expanding their businesses and pushing for faster delivery, but UPS, Fedex and especially the United States Postal Service aren't able to keep up, at least not at same cost that exists today, because they're not increasing their delivery capacity at the same rate e-commerce is growing, He said this will cause a supply and demand issue "that's going to be apparent here pretty soon."
Capacity or Cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
For a long time the US postal service has been losing money, they posted a 5.6 billion loss in 2016. I think they would be more than happy to grow their service but can they grow in a way that is profitable for the USPS that doesn't cost more than e-commerce is willing to pay?
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time the US postal service has been losing money, they posted a 5.6 billion loss in 2016. I think they would be more than happy to grow their service but can they grow in a way that is profitable for the USPS that doesn't cost more than e-commerce is willing to pay?
Well, once they have their pension fully funded for the next 3 generations as legally mandated by Congress they will probably have enough money to expand capacity. Of course, growth=more workers=more pension, so they would probably have to fund that as well which would slow their growth.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Interesting)
The 3-generation pension thing is a myth. They are simply required to fund the benefits that they promise existing workers given standard actuarial tables which estimate lifetime. I would like this rule extended to the entire government, as we are sitting on a liability time bomb. My beef with the treatment of the USPS is I don't think congress phased in the new rules slowly enough for the business to adjust - but no matter what it was going to be traumatic.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like this rule extended to the entire government, as we are sitting on a liability time bomb
I would like this rule extended to private corporations.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like this rule extended to the entire government, as we are sitting on a liability time bomb
I would like this rule extended to private corporations.
I agree completely. Unfunded pensions are a ponzi scheme that should have never been allowed. Whether it is Social Security, police officers, a car manufacturer, etc... promising to pay retirement out of future revenue is a disaster waiting to happen. Places like Detroit show what happens when your population shrinks and you no longer have the tax base to support your future obligations. Same with private corporations. They can go out of business, downsize, etc... and if their profit or workforce shrinks, there is no way they can fund those future obligations. At the very least, future obligations need to be on the book as debt owed so that if they go bankrupt, the retirees have equal footing to other creditors. I live in Missouri, and our public school teachers have a fully funded pension. My grandma actually gets raises when they have too much money in their pension fund. If school teachers can do it then other government and private businesses should be able to do it too.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Unfunded pensions are a ponzi scheme that should have never been allowed. :)
I think there's a middle ground between fully funded and unfunded. Or maybe companies should be forced to buy "pension insurance."
Or maybe it's just something we should have the government do (ie, Social Security).
Social Security is no better. It's also unfunded. It pays out benefits using current revenue. I see no benefits of an unfunded pension. What are the benefits of an unfunded pensions? It's an unlisted IOU (aka liability) for whoever is promising it. It's a way to promise to pay someone more without actually paying them. A fulled funded pension also has the advantage that a person would have the option of taking the extra cash instead of the pension. The only advantage an unfunded pension has is the hope that future revenue is greater than current revenue. This is a horrible assumption that likely only holds true 50% of the time at best.
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What's your alternative? Savings? Private pension funds? Those depend on the insurance and bank not suddenly going poof and taking all your money with it.
A government backed pension paid by current tax generation has one advantage. It may be much, it may be little, depending on the current economic situation and whether tax revenue can fund it. But it cannot be GONE as long as government exists.
And, well, if you consider government gone poof... ain't that worth losing your pension over?
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Pools of pension dollars are irresistible [psc-cuny.org] in our managementist system, even capitalism would be an improvement over this mess.
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A ruling several decades ago states that SS is not a contract between you and the government so collecting any is not guaranteed.
Odd, them taking it out of my fucking paycheck is guaranteed.
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Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, use the rosy projections on good years to show their pension obligations are "overfunded" and withdraw the cash, distribute it as bonus among the top executives. Then on the next year when the returns are lower, they feign ignorance, "omg, it is underfunded, so you pensioners are dragging the company down. we cant fund it. We will go bankrupt and you lose it all. So accept these lower terms". They have been raiding pension funds, built up over 40 years. From 1950 to 1990. They raided them all through the 90s. And converted all the defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. Except government, there are very few defined benefit plans exist in usa today.
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Simple fix - get rid of defined benefit plans and switch to defined contribution plans. Defined benefit plans can only function when the source of revenue is both 1) unlimited or nearly so and 2) easily modifiable without regard to profits. In other words, soaking the taxpayer more and more for significantly above-average pension promises.
I'm ok with defined benefit plans. For a sufficiently large company, they should be able to fully fund a defined benefit plan using actuary tables and adjust appropriately. A defined benefit plan has the advantage that you can pay out slightly higher pension amounts because the people who live longer are subsidized by the people who die early. A defined benefit plan is basically a pooled retirement fund if fully funded.
Pensions in the U.S. Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:2)
Employees of private corporations don't have independent pension funds in the US?
They may or may not. There are a variety of different types of pension plans in the U.S.
The old fashioned pension plan was simply that the company would pay a pension to the retired workers. But this type of pension plan is becoming obsolete, partly because the failure of several large corporations has made it clear that you can't necessarily count on the large corporation continuing to pay the pensions if they go bankrupt.
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If this is a good rule then it should be expanded society wide since otherwise it would mean that workers could lose pensions with private companies also.
There are enough private companies that offer benefits but don't fund them and declare bankruptcy if something bad happens. That should also be illegal.
However, what this says is maybe benefits should not be part of your job at all so that companies don't have to deal with this stuff and we can deal with it at a societal level where that is cheaper and mor
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That should also be illegal.
Actually, the postal rules now closely mirror private rules. This is all about bringing government into line with what we demand from private companies.
what this says is maybe benefits should not be part of your job at all
Benefits are fine. What isn't fine is empty promises in lieu of compensation. It is an immoral practice to make someone work for a promise that you have no way to ensure is kept. It is an immoral practice to burden your children with debts just to fund your recurring expenses. There is nothing OK about unfunded benefits.
reinventing Social Security [Re:Capacity or Cost?] (Score:5, Insightful)
However, what this says is maybe benefits should not be part of your job at all so that companies don't have to deal with this stuff and we can deal with it at a societal level where that is cheaper and more effective.
Hmm-- interesting idea. We could have a government-mandated plan that provides some sort of minimum benefits, which everybody pays into as part of their job, and that could be like a "safety net" applying to all employees, so they're not destitute even if their savings get drained and their company goes bankrupt. And then, companies could also offer benefits beyond this minimum, a "retirement plan," if you will, so people who worked for that company would have an income that's more than that safety-net minimum when they retire. A two-layer plan. The minimum plan would just be be security, be part of the overall social structure.
Say, we could even call it that: "social security." Good name!
Safety net (Score:3)
Tell you what, you pay my SS taxes and you can collect my SS payments. An offer that has NEVER been taken by ANY liberal. Funny how when it becomes optional, the "best thing in the world" suddenly isn't worth it.
So, I take it you didn't actually read what I wrote, right? It isn't intended to be the "best thing in the world."
Social security is intended to be a safety net. A safety net is most needed for the people who are so stupid that they think they don't need one.
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I don't think you understand how private pensions work or how highly they are regulated. And no wonder, with an attitude like that you'll be plenty ignorant.
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The 3-generation pension thing is a myth. They are simply required to fund the benefits that they promise existing workers given standard actuarial tables which estimate lifetime. I would like this rule extended to the entire government, as we are sitting on a liability time bomb. My beef with the treatment of the USPS is I don't think congress phased in the new rules slowly enough for the business to adjust - but no matter what it was going to be traumatic.
From the government's perspective, there is no time bomb.
In the worst case scenario, pension/benefits funding is drained / costs grow way too high. The government just prints out a few trillion dollars to fund it.
The problem is solved, from the government's perspective. Congress critters are already wealthy, and if they don't like the inflation they'll give themselves a pay raise / demand more from lobbyists. Everyone with a government pension / benefits gets their shit fulfilled. It doesn't matter if t
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Yes. But this is overly burdensome and no private companies do anything like this.
I don't think it is overly burdensome in the long term going forward. It avoids the absurd game of promising non-existent benefits in exchange for lower salaries. What was burdensome was forcing them to make up for 25 years worth of bad behavior over a 5 year period. The change in rules should have been phased in more slowly, or even been subsidized with tax dollars.
Private companies do have to fund their pensions, and they are pretty highly regulated. They would never get away with a pay-as-you-go plan.
Furthermore the USPS was forced to do this by legislators who are trying to drive the U.S. Post Office out of business and privatize all delivery of mail and packages.
The
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
For a long time the US postal service has been losing money, they posted a 5.6 billion loss in 2016.
There are three main reasons for them posting a loss:
1. They are the only division of the federal government required to fully fund their pension plan, rather than switching to a "cash balance" plan.
2. They are the only division of the federal government required to fully fund their medical plan, called "Mail Handler's Benefits Program". This is because they have to accept all federal employees who want to enroll in it (rather than private insurance offered in their own division). This is also the medical plan for all members of congress and their dependents.
3. Their bulk mail delivery operates at a negotiated loss. Which wouldn't be a problem, had the Direct Marketing Association not turned around, and turned all the flyers that used to be sent separately into one "coupon brochure" by making an outside "wrapper" page that folds in half, and the other pieces go inside it. Including things like the Trader Joe's Catalog that comes once a month or so.
So yes, they are posting a loss, because the DMA intermediated between them and the flyer senders to take all the profit, while leaving the post office to do the deliver ... on one piece.
The fix is to raise their bulk rates -- which they are prohibited from doing.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't raise stamp prices, they have draconian rules imposed on them about pension funding, etc. Now, I'm not against Congress artificially keeping stamp prices low - we can view that as a public service similar to roads (we don't expect the Highway Department to turn a profit). But we need to pick one or the other - either is a "government business" and needs to run like one or a public service where we expect a loss for public good. Asking for both gets us dysfunction. It's amazing the USPS is as good as it is, all things considered.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's amazing the USPS is as good as it is, all things considered.
Absolutely, everyone like to pick on the USPS but if you were to say to someone who didn't know what the USPS was that one could stick a piece of paper in a envelope and legibly (or not) write an address on it and stick it in a nondescript looking box outside your home with only a little red flag to alert someone of your intentions and have it picked up and delivered anywhere in the U.S. usually within a couple of days and at the most a week to another nondescript box which may (or may not) have said legible address on it for all of $.50 they would call you crazy.
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The problem is best described as neither cost nor capacity, but instead speed limits. As in 65 mph. Basically, we can't get things physically anywhere unless it is coming from less than 100 miles.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are incompetent dickbags who do their best to only hire the dumbest people on the planet. Their autorouting system is so pathetic that it creates routing loops that can only be broken by deliberate human intervention. Their hours are garbage that robs the nation of productivity by expecting people to run their errands at the same time that their employer expects them to work. They suffer no penalties for failure, and there is no accountability. Every single package is scanned and the data handed to the government as part of the spying-on-citizens program.
It's like you've never actually had a package delivery attempt by FedEx or UPS. lol
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It's like you've never actually had a package delivery attempt by FedEx or UPS. lol
Oddly, they manage to get my packages to me rapidly, and when something comes in from out of the country they don't sit on it for five days (literally) like the USPS does with many if not most of my trivial packets out of China.
To be fair, I did one time have a UPS guy lose his truck off my driveway by turning around where I told him not to turn around... lucky he didn't roll it. But I've also had a USPS guy almost go off my driveway in a Jeep... where my '82 Mercedes 300SD has no trouble. I've been on wors
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It's like you don't know the USPS only gets like $1 to deliver your cheap chinkshit from pingpong land.
It's like I don't give a shit, actually. If they can't make it work then they need to demand more money from the pingpongers. And actually, all I really want them to do is put stuff in my mailbox, and if it doesn't fit, faithfully generate a delivery exception by scanning barcodes which results in my receiving an email, like UPS and FedEx can manage. I had that turned on for USPS like I do for the competent carriers, but they apparently turned it off for me. These days I just keep the chain up because it sa
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
Every time UPS gets a new driver, they stop delivering packages to my house. I'm ... lucky, in that I have an even numbered house on the odd side of the street and about an eighth of a mile off relative to the rest of the numbering system. Google maps has the right location and FedEx never has a problem, but each and every time UPS gets a new driver, I have to call them and tell them to have their driver look up my address on Google maps. Then the package arrives the next day.
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We live in an average neighbourhood in an average city in the US with an average numbered house.
UPS is the only sevice that regulary delivers my packages to the wrong place or tells me that my house doesn't exist.
USPS and FedEx have no problem but UPS seem to be staffed by idiots.
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The perception of these companies is all about the last mile. Whomever is your USPS/UPS/FedEx driver(s), that's who is responsible for your opinion of all of USPS/UPS/FedEx.
I've had awful service from all of them at different home addresses. Currently, USPS is the worst for me. I'll get a notification of missed delivery, even those I work from home, have a dog that barks when someone touches the door, live on the ground floor (no excuse of steps), and they leave the mail for the the upstairs tenants in my m
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
The USPS depends on a certain percentage of spam to exist.
That's the fallacy that is killing the Post Office. Every day they deliver billions of pieces of junk mail at a loss. It's like the old joke, "we lose money on every sale but we make it up with volume". Except the Post Office doesn't get the joke.
A truck full of junk mail, at 13 cents a piece, uses the same amount of fuel, and the driver gets paid the same wages, as a truck full of first class mail at 49 cents a piece. End the subsidy for junk mail. The volume of mail will go way down, the Postal Service would need fewer people, trucks, etc., and there would be an enormous savings of time and money because the Postal Service would be in the business of delivering only the mail that people actually want, rather than truck loads of crap that nobody asked for.
They most likely still wouldn't be profitable, but, they would be much better and more efficient than they are today.
They also wouldn't exist without the deal to take small packages from UPS and FedEx. Without a federally-granted monopoly on delivering to your mailbox, the USPS would have gone away already,
Private companies want nothing to do with mail delivery. Delivering mail to *EVERY* address, from the biggest cities to the most remote rural areas, is very difficult, maybe impossible, to do profitably *AND* at a reasonable cost.
But that's OK. Your local police and fire departments don't generate any profit either and nobody is clamoring to shut them down. They just need to be run reasonably with a minimum of waste and inefficiency.
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Unless they're refusing the first class mail in order to take the junk that's largely irrelevant. And what if the truck is only half full?
There's a name for it: overhead contribution.
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If the volume goes down enough they can do with less trucks and drivers.
Fewer.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Informative)
Every day they deliver billions of pieces of junk mail at a loss.
Citation? I can find no evidence backing this claim. Every article I find about USPS financial losses points back to the Congressional pension funding mandate previously mentioned by others -- nothing that is intrinsically related to junk mail. Seriously, if you have a link, please post it because I'd be interested to see it.
Bear in mind that modern junk mail like Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is not individually addressed to the recipients, versus 1st Class Mail which is. There's a huge amount of overhead related to reading those individual addresses, forwarding / routing them, handling exceptions like people that moved / Return To Sender or Wrong Address, etc. None of that overhead is there with EDDM (which literally is bulk mail which gets delivered to every residence on the route -- hence the name), which is a very large percentage of modern junk mail and part of the reason why it's so much cheaper than 1st Class. EDDM junk mail also must be delivered by the sender to the local post offices prior to final delivery on the local routes (though most folks use a 3rd party to do this part for them). But all of these things knock the cost per piece way down versus a 1st Class letter.
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The economy has benefited hugely from a reliable flat-fee mail delivery system. Like many taken-for-granted benefits we enjoy I didn't realize that until I did some consulting work for a company operating in a part of the world with a unreliable postal system
I agree but I doubt the volume would go down significantly if they raised the rate to $1 per envelope and got rid of bulk rate pricing. You would lose some junk mail but could make it up with the added revenue. If volume did go down significantly, switch to MWF delivery and charge extra for Tues/Thurs/Sat/Sun delivery. On a somewhat related note, I was gone for Father's Day weekend and I had to postpone buying something I wanted on Thursday until Saturday just so amazon would delivery it on Monday instea
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The economy has benefited hugely from a reliable flat-fee mail delivery system.
That system retards progress, you know what the economy would benefit from even more? If we replaced all the trivial bullshit mail from the USPS with a government-backed crypto key that you use specifically for government-official communications. Anything that really needs to be handled in snail mail can be done for more than forty cents, through the profitable package carriers, if you simply allow them to deliver to mailboxes.
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The USPS could very easily become "profitable" if it moved to geographic area, variable pricing to cut back on service to high cost routes, of course that will put yet another roadblock towards the development of underdeveloped areas of the country and hurt GDP growth
How's about we actually push the internet out to people who live in the sticks and let them communicate that way, instead of by sending pieces of paper around by truck? If they're truly difficult to deliver to, they can suffer a reduced delivery schedule, come in to a central location to pick up packages, etc.
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Agreed (Score:2)
The service where I live is terrible. The old guy who delivers my wrongly addressed mail is a sour looking asshole. He also drops cigarette butts in my driveway and can't be bothered to walk up my porch steps to deliver packages. He leaves them out in the rain and also is so lazy he forgets to close the mailbox lid. He won't pick up outgoing mail unless he has something to deliver. I've had outgoing mail in my box for three days! I've complained to the post office but it's in the ghetto and they don't care.
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FedEx Smartpost (aka SlowPost) is horribly slow, as anything DHL-related always was, but anything else through t
Re:Capacity or Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, no. The USPS depends on a certain percentage of spam to exist. They also wouldn't exist without the deal to take small packages from UPS and FedEx. Without a federally-granted monopoly on delivering to your mailbox, the USPS would have gone away already, and good riddance.
You just told me that the USPS delivers to people to whom UPS and FedEx don't deliver.
I think that's a valuable service, actually.
Basically, your post says that UPS and FedEx take their profit by delivering to the easy customers, and they use the post office to deliver to the hard ones.
USPS because it is cheaper [Re:Capacity or Cost?] (Score:2)
In short, no. The USPS depends on a certain percentage of spam to exist. They also wouldn't exist without the deal to take small packages from UPS and FedEx. Without a federally-granted monopoly on delivering to your mailbox, the USPS would have gone away already, and good riddance.
You just told me that the USPS delivers to people to whom UPS and FedEx don't deliver.
What? No, no I did not,
Actually, you did, and you repeated it again in your comment. But, you're right: turns out that you apparently didn't actually know that the reason that UPS and FedEX use the US post office to deliver is because it's cheaper for them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u... [wsj.com]
and your lack of reading comprehension is appalling. UPS and FedEx did deliver to those addresses, and they still do, but they are now required to hand the majority of their small packages off to the USPS.
They are "required" to do so because they have a contract to do so. They have a contract to do so because it's cheaper. It's cheaper because the USPS is required to do deliveries.
This handoff typically adds a day on to delivery times, so it harms the customer directly even in cases where the package is subsequently delivered competently.
It may "harm the customer," but UPS and FedEX do it because it i
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It may "harm the customer," but UPS and FedEX do it because it is cheaper.
It's cheaper because the USPS has a monopoly on delivering to your mailbox, which puts them on your street anyway. But that monopoly is based on spam. They can't do that without also delivering spam, which is what subsidizes the small-package-delivery system. That spam has an ecological cost. The USPS is fundamentally unsustainable.
How cheap is junk mail [Re:USPS because it is...] (Score:2)
It's not entirely clear to me that the USPS actually does make money on delivering junk mail. There is a lot of it-- but they don't get paid much for delivering it. First class mail makes money for them. I'm not at all sure whether junk mail does or not.
Keeping the cost of junk mail low, of course, is driven by the lobbying of the junk mail industry. I think we need to blame congress for that
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Thank you for calling that part of his bullshit out and following up. Saved me the work.
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can they grow in a way that is profitable for the USPS that doesn't cost more than e-commerce is willing to pay?
In short, no. The USPS depends on a certain percentage of spam to exist. They also wouldn't exist without the deal to take small packages from UPS and FedEx. Without a federally-granted monopoly on delivering to your mailbox, the USPS would have gone away already, and good riddance. They are incompetent dickbags who do their best to only hire the dumbest people on the planet. Their autorouting system is so pathetic that it creates routing loops that can only be broken by deliberate human intervention. Their hours are garbage that robs the nation of productivity by expecting people to run their errands at the same time that their employer expects them to work. They suffer no penalties for failure, and there is no accountability. Every single package is scanned and the data handed to the government as part of the spying-on-citizens program. There is just no way in which the USPS is not crap.
Let's see which service you use if you want to mail legal documents.
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I'm off tomorrow. Pete or Miguel can deal with it, the fucking assholes.
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A good driver doesn't care. The truck is always full and they always time out on their shift before delivering all their packages. They don't give a fuck if the undelivered package is for your house or not.
A shitty driver "cares" about getting everything "done". What this really means is they take a long lunch, sit in their truck jerking off, or whatever else. Then they scramble to "deliver" stuff. The other AC describes typical behavior. Shitty drivers who are lazy / trying to make up time (that they
You know how many of them can solve that? (Score:4, Interesting)
Make in-store pickup really, really fast. Many brick and mortar stores make it too slow. So that is one of the main reasons why they are losing out to Amazon. If it takes half a day or more from me hitting "buy" on the site and the local store putting together the order, that's too slow for what it is. Most of the time I go into brick and mortar stores in our area, they don't have that much volume. There's no excuse for them to be slow. As far as I'm concerned, they're slitting their throats while Amazon sits there like \_()_/ while chucking tens of billions in low-hanging fruit into their cart.
Re:You know how many of them can solve that? (Score:5, Interesting)
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My BestBuy has the items ready to go on a shelf right by the customer service / online pickup counter. I've pretty much only done it with games and Amiibo, but they do have a closed off area just behind it where larger items could be stored. I also recently did an in-store pickup at a Target for a larger item. They had a similar deal where you get there and confirm the shit you're picking up, then they send someone to the back to go fetch the thing. I didn't time it, but it did take longer than I expect
Re:You know how many of them can solve that? (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole point of e-commerce is to not have to go to the bloody store!
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Micro Center has done a great job at in-store pickup for years. Orders are usually ready by the time I get to the store, if I left home right after ordering. Plus you get to bypass the 10+minute checkout line by going through the less busy pickup desk.
On the other hand, I was shocked at how terrible in-store pickup is at JoAnn Fabrics last week. First, with regular in-store purchases they don't price match their own website, which had everything I was planning to buy at 40% off the store price. Second, if I
Is it really a problem? (Score:3)
Re: Is it really a problem? (Score:2)
USPS doesn't even deliver here. There is no RFD service here. The other companies just leave my packages down in the village or at the post office. UPS used to come up, but then they slid off my driveway and weren't able to get the truck out until the following day. The driveway is paved, too.
Slow? (Score:2)
Now that Amazon is contracting it's own delivery to shave costs, serviced has gone straight to shit.
Random delivery notification, inability to follow some directions like "leave on covered porch not out in the rain by mailbox you fucktard." Items randomly disappearing.
Delivery notifications are entirely useless. I'll get notified of a delivery then have the item show up 5 hours later. I assume it's so they can report to Amazon that it was delivered on time.
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I know, my fault I chose to live in a 3rd floor walk-up. That's actually why I don'
Flawed system. Shippers may not be the biggest is (Score:3)
Heh... (Score:4, Interesting)
Think you guys have it bad there in the US? Try postal service in Brazil. It's a state-owned monopoly that exploits people with extremely expensive pricing, and for products that are coming from outside the country (like chinese products bought on eBay and other sites), the review process to charge for importation taxes can take anywhere from a month to half an year - regularly. Yes, I'm not talking about extremes here, this is the average timeframe.
You never know what you are going to get, there is no tracking system for that, there's no online communication system (like really, when there are taxes to be paid you get sent a notice via snail mail, there is no other option), you can end up getting charged over double the cost of the product plus shipping, you have to go get the product yourself from a designated post office that's oftenly not the closest to your home address, and taxes need to be paid in cash - no other forms of payment accepted.
It's pure unbridled exploitation from a monopoly.
Things like same day delivery or guaranteed next day delivery like what Amazon do is pretty much impossible given Brazil's infrastructure. And the taxation structure is probably the reason why Amazon in Brazil never went above selling eBooks, plus bureaucracy and other crap. And services like Blue Apron, Dollar Shave Club, among others are kinda impossible to work well here.
I've seen packages of mine getting sent to the other side of the country or even to other countries due to postal service error.
But of course, there's absolutely zero pressure for the service to ever get better since it works that way.
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But Brazil is fractally corrupt. Everything you look at seems corrupt, until you take a closer look at it and find out that you were only scratching the surface of corruption.
Apparently they have a lot of the same problems in lots of other countries as well, and there's tons of little businesses which expedite shipping as a result. Clearly, the USA is actually a great place to operate businesses which depend on ordering a lot of parts from other countries, because you tend to actually get things.
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Or, we could just scale back our lust of instant g (Score:2)
What is the Hurry??? (Score:5, Interesting)
So when I buy stuff over the Internet, it usually doesn't matter when it comes and I prefer that they ship it by Canada Post, or USPS, or the Royal Mail, whatever. I am not in a hurry and surface mail is just fine. We get very good mail delivery where I live and if a parcel is too big for my box then I go to the Post Office to pick it up, knowing that it is safe and secure.
What really bugs me is having to deal with the so-called courier companies who invariably come while I am not at home and leave stuff on the porch or leave a notice on my doorknob. They say they will "attempt delivery" again tomorrow but, No, no one comes even though I have made a point of staying at home, alert to the driveway and door. Then I end up having to drive all the way into the city to pick up my parcel at the courier's office anyway. Give me the Post Office any day!
Let those who need 72-hour delivery pay extra for it and leave me alone with much cheaper shipping charges and delivery within two or three weeks. I am fine with that.
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What really bugs me is having to deal with the so-called courier companies who invariably come while I am not at home and leave stuff on the porch or leave a notice on my doorknob. They say they will "attempt delivery" again tomorrow but, No, no one comes even though I have made a point of staying at home, alert to the driveway and door. Then I end up having to drive all the way into the city to pick up my parcel at the courier's office anyway. Give me the Post Office any day!
I have all of these problems too... with the post office. I'm going to go in this morning to pick up a parcel for which they claim they left a slip (they didn't) which would probably have fit into my mailbox just fine.
It's not that I've never had these problems with the other carriers, it's that I have them a lot more with the USPS than I do with UPS or FedEx. I'm supposed to get email from USPS, UPS, and FedEx for delivery exceptions. USPS is the only one that reliably fails to send me such messages. And u
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I ended up having to cut the parcel open to remove its contents and leave the empty package for the carrier to deal with.
I'm glad he's not my carrier anymore, as that was one of the less idiotic things he did.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
China (Score:3)
Something I'd like to know is how Chinese sellers on eBay are able to give "free shipping" on sub-$1 items. I've even won a lot of auctions below 25 cents and I've always received the items. Of course it takes weeks and sometimes nearly two months to arrive, but I get the items.
My question is, who's paying USPS, Canada Post, etc? Is China trying to bankrupt our postal services?
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My question is, who's paying USPS, Canada Post, etc? Is China trying to bankrupt our postal services?
China post is clearly not making anything on these packages. The money has to be made up by the government. This amounts to a Chinese subsidy for people shipping a lot of crap to the USA. If they're trying to destroy anything, it's American retail.
Amazon Bloody Logistics (Score:2)
Here in the UK, our biggest problem isn't the postal service. I've had experiences with both the USPS and the Royal Mail. By and large, the Royal Mail is not that bad. It has its problems, sure, but I've generally found it more reliable than the US equivalent. Our geography is generally just easier for that kind of thing, I suspect.
The biggest problem we have over here in the e-commerce sphere is Amazon Bloody Logistics. This is the single worst delivery organisation I have ever encountered, by a long reach
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What's badged as Amazon Logistics seems to actually vary a lot from country to country, depending on local conditions and labour laws.
Here in the UK, it is an absolutely bare-bones system with very few actual employees. It's mostly self-employed drivers hired on a contracted basis via a system that seems to be total chaos.
I've certainly had problems with the Royal Mail as well in the past. When I was in my late teens, our local Post Office was raided by the police due to a systematic programme of theft of a
So they need to pay for it? (Score:2)
...that's how capitalism works.
Either a new supplier will enter the field because there's money to be made, or the current services will raise prices as needed and expand.
I'd expect the latter. It's just that this shit doesn't happen as instantly as analysts seem to think it "should"..
"Esp the USPS" (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Who first was semi-privatized (and Founding Father Ben Franklin, first Postmaster, is spinning in his grave), and then the GOP doesn't want to fund it well enough that they've been cutting back hours and delivery. Same as Amtrak.
The GOP: Government doesn't work... because we make *SURE* it doesn't.
Doesn't have to be this way (Score:4, Insightful)
The USPS could build out the necessary infrastructure and at a lower cost than Fedex and UPS, if the GOP would just stop trying to kill them off [crooksandliars.com]. And let's be honest, it's Fedex and UPS lobbyists providing the incentive to pass crap legislation like this. Their entire drive is to hamstring the USPS, because they can't compete long term against a non-profit government agency like that unless they can buy legislation forces the USPS prices up and limits the services that can be provided.
Bullshit (Score:2)
USPS has been growing like crazy. They do Sunday delivery now, and they do 3 or 4 delivery rounds in my area per day.
Years ago you'd only get one delivery round per day (and none on Sunday), unless you paid a ton for registered / certified / whatever the one with real tracking and direct signature confirmation is.
Maybe USPS isn't growing as fast as they'd like, but ecommerce isn't going to grow forever. In ye olden times, people would pick up their goods themselves from "stores". Today, people want every
LOL, blame (Score:2)
I am a bit alarmed by the rapidity of the sea change in shopping habits, with so many big retailers closing their doors. But they are only doing so because we (as a whole) don't value the experience they provide and do
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Obvious prediction for 5 years from now: JCP, Sears, K-Mart,
The USPS isn't my problem (Score:2)
My problem with e-commerce is that there are 3 choices with delivery.
1. They leave my $1,000 computer out where the locals can steal it.
2. I have to drive to the middle of nowhere to pick it up.
3. I have to take off work.
The odds of them delivering after I get home from work, or on my day off are about the same as me getting eaten by a shark (I live in the Midwest).
Re: Easy solution. (Score:4, Funny)
Congratulations on not even reading the summary: "UPS, Fedex and especially the United States Postal Service aren't able to keep up"
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IMO, GP is on the right track, but simply didn't explain it clearly.
We're mostly talking about deliveries in the USA (based on the summary, USPS, etc).
When you order from Amazon, you get a choice of when to have something delivered, but you do not get to choice the delivery company (USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc). How the fuck are they supposed to compete and improve if you don't give the consumer the choice to pay more for better service?!?!?!
FWIW, it wasn't always that way. They used to offer a choice. I use
Pro Tip: Anonymous posts are handled differently (Score:2)
There are very, very few legitimate reasons to post anonymously. When I am moderating and I determine that the person is posting anonymously for a legitimate reason, then I give them the same chance at a positive rating as a named poster. But if not, I judge them much more harshly.
Why? Because if you don't have the guts to identify yourself when you could, then you don't deserve to be treated like others who do.
So, don't post anonymously if you want to be a valued member of the conversation.
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You and I are at odds. I see anonymous posting as the soul of slashdot. Sure some people post anonymously just to troll, but others have very good reasons to remain anonymous.
Unfortunately the flood of sewage spilling from trolls and one-issue-idiots have completely discredited the few with purported "very good reasons" to remain anonymous.
Re: Pro Tip: Anonymous posts are handled differen (Score:2)
Umm... Bottom of the page, desktop site. To go back, same thing, but it then says mobile site.
Mobile has some shitty bugs.
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If you would comment on the article instead of spewing non-related political flame-bait, perhaps you wouldn't be downmodded. Also, the "moderators" on this site aren't some demi-gods, they are users like you and me. The only difference is that they have a good standing in the community and thus are awarded points to moderate the site.
Posting as an AC and not being on topic will ensure that you never get to moderate.
TL;DR: You are not being censored because of your political views. You are being downmodded b
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"Censorship" isn't bad. One of the great things about the forums here is the moderation/censorship system. We only forbid _government_ censorship, and even then mainly of political speech.
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Yes, shut down the USPS because you don't like some guy. Sounds legit.
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Because the private couriers have never had bad employees. /s
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Amazon has been using their own contractors to deliver packages in my area for a while now. From a customer's perspective, my packages arrive exactly within the timeframe as specified by Amazon.
Their technique there is to use their own contractors to deliver to places that are easy to get to, and the USPS to deliver to the ones that are hard to get to.
That business "opportunity to improve" relies on the U.S. Post office to work.
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I sent a note to Bezos a while back offering this exact thing. I was tired of my Amazon packages going by US Mail and arriving on time maybe 20 percent of the time. I basically told him "Hey I'm a Prime member but USPS shipping sucks. I will gladly pay an extra couple dollars to have my packages upgraded to UPS or FedEx."
Sadly, they don't yet have a way to do that but if they did, I bet it'd really hurt the post office enough that they'd ponder getting their act together.
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I suspect the change was because of the multiple "Package arrived late" support requests I made.
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All I want is the option to buy UPS Ground shipping. Is that so hard?
You can usually actually do that with larger packages, IME. But with small packages, unless they are sent next day, they are likely to be handed off to the USPS even if you send them via UPS. The sender literally doesn't know who's going to show up at your door to deliver a small package sent via UPS or FedEx.
Re: Barak Obama (Score:2)
It's actually limited to 10 years and as many terms or partial terms as you can fit, with none starting after the six year mark.
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Sanders will be dead in 2024.
Take your threats elsewhere, or keep them to yourself, lest you be investigated by Federal law enforcement.
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