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Hey ya’ll,
I’m starting to become afraid to leave my house for daily ship outs and would like advice on package pickup.
1). If you get a porch package delivery box, does it matter what type of delivery box it is? Does it have to say “deliveries” on it, or is it okay if it’s just a large outdoor storage container type box? Is there a postal approved type box you have to use? Or does it not matter at all and I’m overthinking this?
2). BoxLock Package Delivery Locks go for $130 on Amazon. Are there any cheaper options for them? I’ll buy it I have to, obviously, but yikes.
3). Do you always have to have a priority shipment in your pickup? Normally a quarter to half of all of my orders are 1st class, the rest Media Mail. A few international 1st class packages every few days, but not many these days. I’ll get a priority mail order usually once or twice a week. Does this matter for pickup?
Those are the most important questions for now. I already did a check on the USPS package pickup website and my address is good for pickup, yay.
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For us, its about communication with our carrier. We’ve shown her where we store packages. Doesn’t matter what kind of packages they are. Its a good system for us. Do you have the same carrier each day?
Since we’re rural, we dont need to lock anything. But since you’ll be home, could you just keep an eye on the packages until the carrier comes?
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Different carriers each day, and they really don’t want to communicate during this time. We sometimes have 2 or 3 carriers come each day – 1 for letters, 1 for packages, sometimes a second carrier for packages.
I saw on the package pickup website that you could indicate where the packages are – front of house, side of house, etc,.
I was thinking of getting a ring doorbell if I do this. Hmmm…
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Yeah, the system will likely be different for each of us depending our relationship with our carrier or postmaster.
Have you tried calling your postmaster to have a conversation about their particular process? If your carrier is on foot, they may need to send a separate truck etc.
You could also just start the process and see what happens š
https://tools.usps.com/schedule-pickup-steps.htm
Since you’re home, you can watch how it works and communicate with whoever shows up.
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I just had my first ever porch pickup. Yay! It happened at 6:30 pm, which is pretty late and I was somewhat anxious the whole day whether it was going to happen or not. I started off with less than 10 packages, and I have another one scheduled for tomorrow for 25 packages.
I had the 25 packages done by 4:30, but my mailman comes anywhere from 11 am to 7 pm and the pickup was only for 7 pieces total. How strict is the post office when it comes to the package numbers/weight in the request vs. what you have on the porch for them to pickup? I also dated the new pickup request packages for tomorrow just in case I didnāt have them ready in time.
Tbh, I donāt even know if the package request even got to my mailman. He left the packages I had specified would be in the mailbox in the mailbox without picking them up and only took the stragglers I left on the porch and made a note of in the pickup request before a neighbor got his attention for me (I was inside and working out of earshot) that he had left some packages. I also read that youāre supposed to receive some note saying they picked up the items, but I didnāt. I think he scanned the scan form at least.
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I think there’s “how its supposed to work” and how it works in reality. Probably depends on your carrier and his/her ability.
We dont even schedule pickups anymore because our carrier just knows to check our porch. Unless we have dozens and dozens of boxes, she always has room in her car. She scans all packages as she loads them. We have a system and it works for our carrier and us.
If you have a regular carrier, ask them what would work. Do they drive a truck?
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I just got this email:
Thank you for using USPS.com. This email confirms USPS attempted a Package Pickup.
Important!
This email confirms a Package Pickup was attempted, but was unsuccessful, because the package(s) were not found.What the heck? He picked up all of the packages.
I have a regular mailman Monday-Friday, different one on Saturday. However, I will sometimes have up to 3 mailmen a day from USPS come to deliver packages. Maybe an earlier mailmen was supposed to pick them up and didnāt? Iām sort of nervous about the large pickup scheduled for tomorrow now.
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Alright, my mailman did not scan in my packages, and they have not been scanned in as of this morning. When I normally drop them off at my local post office, they are scanned in with the scan form and are processed through the post office by 11 at night. 2 scans before they are shipped out to distribution centers.
Now, I have 7 potentially lost or stolen packages. I guess there’s a chance he could have left them on his truck and maybe they will be scanned in this morning? I don’t know. I notice that a lot of my packages are usually marked for “out for delivery” by 10 in the morning by my carrier or someone in the post office. I’m so glad I started this experiment with 7 very cheap packages and had the bulk of the ship out brought in on foot the previous day.
I can’t have my packages stolen or tossed by my mail carrier, period. This is my f/t income. I knew it was bad when I got that “couldn’t find your packages” email last night.
I found the phone number of my local postmaster, but that seems very last resort and I don’t want to have animosity with my mail carrier, even if it does look like he might have really stolen my packages?
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Uh, I wouldn’t assume your carrier stole the packages. Maybe just didnt scan them.
As I suggested before, I would meet your carrier today and speak to him/her directly about the process for pickups. Ask about the best way to ask for a delivery and about scanning. USPS is still a every human institution and we find good relationships is key.
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I wouldn’t be worried if the carrier just didn’t scan them. It’s that he marked the pickup attempt as unsuccessful AND didn’t scan them that worries me. From what I have read online, I have no proof to stand on of the carrier picking up these items if these 7 items all eventually end up “lost.”
I do plan on speaking with the carrier today about using the scan form and leaving a pickup slip from now on, just so I have actual proof from now on that the items were picked up. Tomorrow, I will call my main local post office to ask for them to look for the other 7 packages if they are still not scanned in transit. I just attempted tracking all 7 packages again and none of them have been scanned into the system. My mail out for delivery was scanned 15 minutes ago, so I thought that by this time this morning I would have a better idea of what’s going on with them. I don’t.
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I’ve had packages that didn’t get scanned on pickup not get scanned until much later. With all of the chaos, it may be later in the process that your packages finally get scanned. My regular mailman is great about scanning on pickup–as Jay advises, we talked with him when we moved here. But last year around Christmas, there were a lot of substitutes who frequently would not scan at pick up. Much more stressful, but everything did eventually get scanned.
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I’ve scanned all 7 packages again and there’s still no tracking updates on any of them. That is really worrisome, so I put in a request for the packages to be traced by the USPS. I’ve had problems with this post office before, so it might not even necessarily be the carrier – items will sometimes go missing in that post office even after I’ve had the initial acceptance scan.
I’m still waiting for the carrier to come for the batch going out today. It’ll probably happen from 5-7 pm. Way past when the post office I like to going to closes, and I’d rather not leave my house again for at least a few weeks if possible.
Some parts of the postal service have completely shut down in NYC, so it could be worse:
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Wow, that was quick. I just heard back from my local post office and the guy said that it wasn’t the carrier that marked the pickup attempt as unsuccessful – it was whoever works in the back and marks them as picked up or not that did it. Weird.
He had nothing to say about tracing the packages, so I guess I’ll see what happens with them.
He also told me that both of my local post offices have been for the most part empty, and they have initiated additional safety features for those that are venturing to the post office – 6 ft. distance markers, cleaning every 2 hours, etc,. He told me that the carriers are pretty much too stressed out right now that they’re not really paying attention to pickups, and told me that they are not scanning individual packages. He seemed surprised when I told him that I had a scan form available for the carrier to use, and told me that I would pretty much have to be down there each time the carrier comes to make sure that he scans the scan form in.
He was pushing me to go back to the post office on foot rather than have pickups scheduled in the future due to the stress of the carriers in my area. I told him that I would continue with the pickup for today, but I’ll see about possibly going back to the post office in the future? I feel like either situation at this point could be risky – face-to-face daily interaction with my carrier to make sure that he scans my form and takes my packages, or walk to the post office and enter enclosed spaces with people that might have the virus. It’s really risky at this point either way.
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Okay, package pickup #2 went okay and the scan forms got scanned. Yessss. There was some confusion at first as my carrier thought that the sheet about the pickup issued by the post office was my package scan sheet, but after asking a few times he finally scanned the my scan sheet and my packages show as being accepted.
Iāve scheduled another pickup for tomorrow. I estimated the amount of packages so I can include what comes in overnight and tomorrow morning to the pickup for tomorrow. Since he doesnāt come until late in the day, I might as well. Iāll go out there tomorrow and Monday to make sure that he scans the right scan sheets, and Iām already planning a gift bag I can give him to thank him on Monday – some snacks, hand sanitizer.
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So it turns out our regular carrier is a total tool and close to retirement age. He keeps not picking up my packages. š
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I would do what Jay suggests first about talking to your mailman about it. If after that youāre scheduling the package pickup and heās still not picking up your packages, submit a request through the USPS website about problems with your postal carrier. The local manager of your post office (or postmaster? IDK) should call you back within a few hours and help you out.
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The Post Office is running dangerously close to bankruptcy at the moment. There is even a movement trying to get people to buy stamps in order to give it time for some sort of deal to be reached in Congress. I would think shipping eBay packages is a good thing to help keep the Post Office afloat right now.
EDIT: this was meant as a reply to Jimi-P. I must have clicked reply to the wrong message. Sorry
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Hi.Just my thinking on this matter. I should say that I am a part time seller who does not rely on Ebay to provide any “necessary” income. I took down all my listings for now in concern for my local postal workers.I figure they have enough to worry about these days without heaping more work on them by adding package pickup to their daily workload. I know that everyones situation is different. Take care everyone
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Iāve talked to the manager about him before. He asked who was on our route and when I described him he was like āoh, yeah forget asking him for help.ā Heās that guy who doesnāt even wave back from his truck. Luckily he doesnāt seem to be on our route every day, but now Iām worried about Ebay dings. I guess Iāll have to return to 2 day handling so I have time to go in.
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Anyone do Saturday pickups? I’m completely overwhelmed with the amount of orders this week and think there will be too many for my mailman to pick up on Monday. Is Saturday pickup reliable, or should I just stick to Monday-Fridays?
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We always do Saturday pickups. I think things are as reliable as your local carriers are. Again, I’d get to become friends with your carriers.
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My M-F carrier has been my Saturday carrier as well for the past month. He said he needed the overtime. I was going to do it last weekend for the first time, but I was afraid that that would be the weekend he took off. I’ll once again skip scheduling a pickup for tomorrow just in case it’s a substitute carrier. The substitute carriers can come anywhere from 8 am – 7 pm on a Saturday and I just don’t have the time to train them, especially if it’s a different carrier each Saturday when it’s not my main guy.
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