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Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

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Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#51

Post by sokoloff »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #21
AaronFriel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMV loses money. The FDA loses money. The FCC loses money. These are public institutions, not for profit enterprises. They're funded partially by fees and usually largely by congressional appropriations. You beg the question by beginning by comparing the USPS to other carriers. It's one of the few public institutions required by the constitution! Even the Defense Department doesn't get that privilege, and it lose…

But should the USPS be a public institution? Many countries have opted to privatize their postal services, admittedly with varying results, but with quite a few successes as well: you may have heard the package division of what was once Deutsche Bundespost, now known worldwide as DHL. I do agree that right now is not a great time for radical changes though!

Deutsche Post bought DHL from 1998 through 2002.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#52

Post by wlesieutre »

chrisBob wrote: post #30

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

I had USPS report a package "delivered" but it never showed up. Waited a few days, contacted the vendor who shipped out a replacement (it was a couple of bucks of mechanical bits).

Two months later I open up the mailbox and there's the original shipment.

I have to wonder if they actually track anything. It feels more like they make an estimate of the delivery route/time and play it back to you regardless of whether it's actually happening.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#53

Post by ganoushoreilly »

joncrane wrote: post #49
dboreham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm interesting. I had a package I mailed to a relative stolen off their porch and subsequently did a moderately deep dive with USPS staff to try to identify the thief. Those folks told me that there is GPS on the delivery vehicle/handheld scanner such that they have the time and location of the delivery event, and the location of the vehicle at the time. That story seems inconsistent with yours.

Is it really inconsistent? The technology is there to investigate if someone raises a stink, but if no complaint is made, no one investigates/correlates delivery reporting vs the data you mention. I honestly believe many delivery drivers (not just USPS, but Amazon, UPS, FedEx, etc) are brazen because they get away with it 99% of the time.

I agree, i've had not insignificant amount of delivered then show up three days later packages with USPS over the past 5 or so years. Mostly business deliveries, but i've had a few I had to report as lost to the shipper. In a couple instances we've had things show up two months or so later found. Which I suppose happens, but I've only had one UPS package lost in the same time frame and none for fedex.

At my house we have a communal mailbox bank (which seems to be normal now for most new construction). I would bet that 1/4 packages of mine are delivered to the wrong box / placed in the wrong box. So some of it now can at least be attributed to those mistakes.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#54

Post by aacook »

TMWNN wrote: post #9

This analysis only covers USPS package delivery, which is different from flats. Ballots are flats. Magazines are flats. Letters are flats. Anything non-bendable isn't. This is what has been happening to USPS, folks: 1. Because of COVID19, flats volume has collapsed, while package volume has skyrocketed. Flats sorting machines can do absolutely nothing for packages for reasons that are left up to the reader, so USPS h…

I have been wondering about this argument about the decline. Check out these numbers: https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/

From 2010 to 2019:

-Overall annual operating revenue has increased from $67.1B to $71.1B

-First-class letters has dropped from 77.6B to 54.9B

-Shipping/package volume has grown from 3.3B to 6.2B

-Marketing mail has dropped from 81.8B to 75.7B

I would not call a 29% drop on first-class mail over a 10-year period with a 100% growth in packages a "collapse."

I wonder how this stacks up in comparison to FedEx and UPS who are surely seeing a drop in letters/flats through their system. It would be interesting to track down the same numbers and compare.

People assume UPS can deliver letter-sized envelopes just as well as the USPS but they simply can't. I'm working on https://nanagram.co and up until recently we used UPS. The average delivery was 7-9 days at best with poor tracking. I switched everything over to the USPS in July and even with all the pandemic the post office is more reliable than UPS and also a little cheaper. We've been seeing deliveries in 2-4 days and before the pandemic 1-3 days.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#55

Post by mindslight »

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #40
cooljacob204 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USPS said they delivered my package on Sunday, but it magically showed up Wednesday.

Personally I experience this way more with Fedex - literally its nearly every time. I haven't had this happen except for a couple of times with USPS over the last 2-3 years (been in the same apartment for about that long).

I have the same experience, with one or two USPS fake deliveries. None from UPS that I can recall (but fewer packages overall than USPS). Meanwhile Fedex Ground has seemingly adopted a policy of doing whatever it takes to mark a package as delivered, including just leaving them down by the road where they can be easily stolen.

It's all down to your individual carriers and local depot management though. My local Fedex Ground depot doesn't seem to care at all, so my only recourse is to avoid having things I care about shipped Fedex. Which by itself is another reason the USPS needs to be kept operating - so at least we have three options instead of the characteristic duopoly of modern antitrust enforcement.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#56

Post by tomohawk »

athst wrote: post #7

This feels like a missed opportunity. There's a lot of data Shippo could share about USPS and that would help add more context to what's happening in the news. But it's difficult to understand anything concrete from this. It would be more helpful to see how this fits into long term trends and other context on how abnormal it is.

Perhaps we should let Newman, our favorite fictional postman, represent?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Fr-g-B0vs

Mail service dysfunction has been going on a long time, and has been a joke for a long time.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#57

Post by programbreeding »

wlesieutre wrote: post #52
chrisBob wrote: post #30

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

I had USPS report a package "delivered" but it never showed up. Waited a few days, contacted the vendor who shipped out a replacement (it was a couple of bucks of mechanical bits). Two months later I open up the mailbox and there's the original shipment. I have to wonder if they actually track anything. It feels more like they make an estimate of the delivery route/time and play it back to you regardless of whether i…

I personally think they do actually track things, but I would guess the postal workers are held to some kind of metric for delivery times. I think if they know they don't have the time to actually deliver your package then they'll often mark it as delivered when it hasn't been, then they just deliver it the next day. In your case it sounds like maybe your package got lost somewhere in the truck after they had already marked it as delivered.

This is all speculation based on my experiences with USPS.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#58

Post by liminal »

chrisBob wrote: post #30

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

The next day would be amazing. I've seen things reported delivered that only turn up a week or more later. Only with USPS

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#59

Post by programmertote »

chrisBob wrote: post #30

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

I had the same experience (especially in populous metro areas like NY). It's not just with USPS, but also with FedEx.

I called FedEx support and they explained me why this happens. Turns out, people who deliver packages/mail have strict deadline to deliver their packages and on days when there are just too many for them to finish delivering everything, they mark it as delivered and actually deliver the package on the day after.

Re: Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data

#60

Post by sjs382 »

programmertote wrote: post #59
chrisBob wrote: post #30

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

I had the same experience (especially in populous metro areas like NY). It's not just with USPS, but also with FedEx. I called FedEx support and they explained me why this happens. Turns out, people who deliver packages/mail have strict deadline to deliver their packages and on days when there are just too many for them to finish delivering everything, they mark it as delivered and actually deliver the package on the…

Wait, you're telling me that FedEx support explained that their drivers are defrauding their customers?
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