I just wish they had better package tracking.

Although I think it'd be pretty hilarious to see someone try, seeing as how the "largest" of the boxes is 7"x7"x6". JeffJ-NJ already pointed this out.

You know, people using post office boxes for moving instead of mailing things increases their costs, which increases our postage...

Just a thought.

Seriously people, go to your local bookstore. Skip everything else, just go out to bookstores and ask for boxes. Unless they're in the middle of an inventory cycle and returning things like mad, they'll give you as many boxes as you ask for and bookstore boxes are the PERFECT size for moving, unlike priority boxes which are mostly odd shapes. You can pack a bookstore box with anything except loose paper, stuff it to the gills, and still be able to pick it up. Because it's designed to be full of books and still have the average employee be able to lift it.

Loose paper is doable if you're strong or hiring movers, but I can't manage it so I usually alternate. Loose papers are packed with lighter items like clothes to even it out.

I've moved eleven times in ten years. Priority mail boxes are not what they're cracked up to be. Their poster tubes are handy, because poster tubes are costly. That's the only product of theirs that I use.

Hilarious... that should be in Wikipedia.

Then again this was a customer not a postmaster and his entire argument was centered around that "We Support Our Troops" sign. Still, it would not surprise me if some of the USPS's income was being subsidized to other things such as the war. They said that Congress was making USPS open an escrow account for the price hike to 39 cents but did not offer a clear explanation for the most recent one.

I'm not saying it's 100% fact, but I did hear this directly from two different post masters in two different regions, so take that for whatever it's worth

And for the airlines, banking and broadcasting.

"We're not even worth the effort for any high-speed internet options other than satellite, and no mobile phone provider has erected a tower that provides signal to our area."

It's the exact same situation where I am on the Oregon coast. Far cry from where I grew up in New York City, but that's the situation here.

They're not REQUIRED to give a shit about us, so they don't. Please do not lecture me about the theoretical miracle of deregulation. As far as I can see, the tangible results of it are the Enron guys laughing on the phone about robbing "Grandma Millie" of her pension check. Remember that?

Then again, probably not.

USPS will also pick up priority mail from your home for free. Just mentioning this in case a shipping rape apologist chooses to pipe in with a "but I have to drive to the post office and gas is so expensive omg!11!" comment.
Linky
https://carrierpickup.usps.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CarrierPickup.woa

/has a few issues with bullshit shipping fees.

And I think you people need to stop drooling over the idea of getting anything free and consider the economics and ethics of why that thing might be free. If you need boxes to use with the USPS, then take advantage of their service. But if you need boxes to build forts in your basement, then go spend your own money. Don't ruin things for other people by abusing them.

@weave: Amen! People love to complain about "government waste", but it isn't like the private shipping firms are lining up to provide daily mail service to virtually every U.S. domicile.

I've worked in mail order for a good number of years now and agree with timmus that the USPS is a great parcel delivery service, especially for smaller and specialty merchants. Sometimes UPS/FedEx/DHL has a better rate, but that is typically if you are shipping volume (as in hundredweight) or (more importantly) shipping to locations with their own scheduled UPS (or FedEx) pick up service.

Also, Global Priority Mail flat rate can be a great bargain if you are shipping overseas, especially things that are dense and heavy. Almost all of the international orders I have processed in the last few years have been dramatically cheaper with Global Priority flat rate (either the large envelope or the box) than UPS, FedEx, or other USPS services.

Wow. I have too much to say about shipping. Going to go have a life now.

I guess you dont live in California. Or you dont use the airlines. And Im guessing you have not taken a loan out recently.

I mean seriously you are assuming that one or two companies with delivery forces 1/50th the size of the USPS would even WANT to do the job. One average size postal office contains over 100 workers, thats about how many a district for the UPS has. Carriers alone could equal 12-20 per a town. Larger towns can have as many as 100 carriers (like Brick where I worked out of.) Citys can have as many as 300-500 PER CITY.

The only reason the USPS is not doing hot vs FedEx and UPS and the like, is because those carriers only do a specific market and can tailor themselves to that market. If you where to deregulate the postal service, EVERYONE would have to do everything. UPS and FedEx would be dead in a year if they tried to do what the USPS does as a whole unit.

Not to mention we would still need most of the administrative facilities of the USPS, as they are the only ones legally permitted to negotiate treaties and the like with other countries, which UPS and FedEx then follow.

Let's see, 2 pounds of books from here to NYC:
US Post Office: $4.60 + $0.00 box = $4.60, 2 days transit via air
UPS: $9.79 + $1.10 box = $10.89, 3 days transit via ground, pickup fees extra

We'd be an idiot to use UPS, and I have never understood why a lot of small merchants bother with them.

A series of private firms competing for your postal dollars would necessarily perform the task more efficiently at a cheaper cost.

Until most of the series of private firms go belly-up or get bought out.

But what do I know? I mean, it sure worked great for electricity and telecommunications. Everyone's paying oodles less than they were before. No wait....they're not.

Don't get me wrong - I agree in principle that the government should not be in any type of business like this.

But I don't believe for a second that privatizing the industry will automatically solve the problem. It will only solve the idealogical problem of the government running an industry.

I always enjoy how everyone is against government waste and spending until it comes to a program or service that benefits them personally.

And Troy, yes. A series of private firms competing for your postal dollars would necessarily perform the task more efficiently at a cheaper cost. They would have to or they would not be able to compete with the fully privatized existing USPS. The one this the USPS has going for it is economies of scale, something it's directors have fully admitted to not taking advantage of in the past 30 years, since you know, they had no incentive to do so.

If we find a way to send a bulk of our mail via electronic means no problems will be solved, and the taxpayer drain from the USPS would likely increase as their profits fall (see Amtrak) as the Government is unwilling to let failing programs die natural economic deaths. Those indirect subsidies would quickly become direct subsidies.

The problem isn't that it could be managed better.
It's that having a human being hand-deliver letters to every single person can never actually be made efficient.

If we could just figure out some way to send the vast majority of our letters in some sort of electronic way, perhaps using the Internet, we could make this work. People could use these "e-letters" most of the time. Things that must be phsyical (certified mail, packages, etc) can be picked up at centralized depots.

The USPS (as well as most of their competitors) have been doing this for years. The cost of the box is insignificant next to the postage you'll pay when you use it.

Of course, that's not counting cheap bastards who get a hundred of them for their own use. Priority Mail would probably be cheaper if people didn't do that. I'm sure the USPS knows how many Priority boxes they gave out last year and how many were shipped. They're only mildly competent at delivering mail, but I bet they can do math.

Thrust, the USPS is protected by law from competition. It is illegal for anyone else to deliver first class letters or deliver anything to US mail boxes, which is why couriers and package deliverymen must deliver everything in person, thus making the process more difficult and cumbersome, indirect protectionism for the quasi-government monopoly. Additionally, there are direct protections, as non-USPS carriers have a government mandated price floor of $3 on letters.

While the post office doesn't receive "direct" subsidies, they receive a plethora of "indirect
subsidies that cost the taxpayers upwards of a Billion dollars. From tax ememptions to legal perks to parking ticket exemption to below market Treasury loans. The "self-sufficient non-taxpayer funded" has sucked in billions of federal dollars.

and it's a federal crime to use the priority boxes for any other shipping than priority. they may over look once or twice but they will get you if you make a regular thing out of it.

another way to save on shipping is to purchase postage online if you check the USPS postage calculator you will find TWO different prices, one for home printed postage and one for the WINDOW at the post office.

I also use these for scrap cardboard and you never know when you are going to need it. I keep some in my trunk for the winter in case I get stuck in snow, I use them to line my car when transporting large or dirty things so my seats don't get damaged or dirty, I even created some "duct work" for an air conditioner to port the cool air to exactly where I want it to go. The possibilities are endless.

On top of that, my local post office is always out of things such as CUSTOMS FORMS and tell me I should order them online. Which I do. And then I wait and wait for them to show up.

Now I've finally gotten smart. I've been ordering 100 customs forms every other day for the last four weeks. They're finally showing up now. I'll continue doing this until I have 5,000 on hand, which will take care of my needs for a full year.

(Yes, this is probably screwing someone else, but is it my fault the Post Office can't deliver their own products in a more timely manner?)

UPS and FedEx provide complimentary packaging for their express services as well, so it's not a matter of the USPS monopoly on First Class mail-- It's a courtesy to volume shippers and it keeps the carrier's brand visible to the customer.

It exists as it does BECAUSE of past practice by other companies where they would buy up all the cheap routes in the country, and leave the rest to the USPS where those people had to suffer with much higher postage because it was not offset by the cheaper routes.

By being a monopoly the USPS can offer a flat rate to everyone, something the other services had no intention of doing.

The funny part of this was it was also intended to reduce "extraneous" mail that was cluttering up the mailboxes. This is the 1930's term for spam... which today makes up the bulk of the USPS's pay since the killing of the urgent mail market by FedEx and UPS in the 1980's.

Another interesting aspect is that FedEx and the USPS actually work together now, and much of your mail might actually be shipped via a FedEx plane, and in return a USPS carrier might be the one to deliver your FedEx package.

The politics of the mail service is a lot more complicated than your comment really betrays. Nor should you go lumping in your areas poor service with others. When I worked for them, we worked our ass off getting the mail to people, sometimes I worked till 6:00pm after a 8:00 start time I had so much mail and so few people where available to help out.

The USPS is extremely efficient as well. About the only thing thats hand sorted is local mail, as anything shipped across country goes through machines that not only sort out where its going, but actually builds the carriers route for them. Much of the problems we actually had in delivering the mail was as a result of two major issues, improper letter labeling, and improper packaging, both the blame of the user not the carrier. I cant tell you how many broken wine bottles resulted in practically whole bags of mail damaged or destroyed despite you being EXPLICITLY TOLD NOT TO MAIL LIQUIDS.

Glad to see some kickbacks from my tax dollars!

The cost of the box is included in the cost of shipping. Most of these are the fixed rate $8.10 Priority shipping, which is a great deal.

Having said that, it RULES. I've needed boxes to send stuff out and these saved me time and effort.

It's possible tax dollars don't directly fund the USPS, but they sure as hell protect it from competition (and ruin any chance for efficiency).

I never got them out of the bigger box they were sent in. But I guess someday they might be useful!

That's awesome.

most of these sizes have been around for some time. They just added the smaller ones though.

And then, so I don't feel horrible, I'll re-use the boxes for mailing stuff. Yeah, that's it.