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Rydell,
Auxiliary route is an internal designation by the USPS and doesn’t really mean anything to the consumer/customer. All it means is you are on a route that takes less than 8 hours to complete.
Most likely you don’t have a regular carrier either. Who ever has free time or the temps will get that route. Not sure why the supervisor would tell you this other than to maybe make it sound like an excuse.If you ship a lot of packages daily I believe you can have a standing order with the USPS to stop at your house every day. For example, when I delivered mail there were pawn shops on my route and I would stop there every day and pick up packages.
The USPS wants your business trust me. 1st class mail volume has been down every year I believe since 2006 and they are bleeding cash. Most of the carries know this too and recognize that if they want to be employed in the long run they need to be picking up packages. Despite this there are still curmudgeons, temps, and post masters that don’t give a toss. Hopefully, you don’t have one of these people in your post office.
AS you found out though, if a lot of packages are missed you can call the post office and they will most likely send someone out to pick up. If you live close to the post office and its after 5pm you can call and ask if you can drop them off at the back door. Don’t show up unannounced though. In the office I worked in the mail truck didn’t leave until 6:30-7:00pm.
Whiskey,
We have not heard back from the OP yet, so its difficult to recommend how to proceed.
It really hinges on if the postage was purchased thru amazon shipping services or not.
If it was the OP is protected against A-Z claims (I think up to $200) and it will not affect their ODR. (order defect rate) IF the sale was greater than $200 Amazon requires signature confirmation AFAIK. (if FBA) I think FBM is optional.If postage was purchased thru another channel such as USPS.com or stamps.com and if it went priority mail insurance is included up to $100 for free. Although for lost mail claims the USPS requires you to WAIT 15 -21 days from expected delivery date before they will open a claim.
If postage was purchased via UPS or FEDEX they also include insurance up to $100 for free and have their own polices for filing a claim.
IF the package was sent USPS 1st class mail and extra insurance wasn’t purchased the OP has virtually no protection (unless insurance was purchased separately) or shipping was purchased thru amazon shipping services.
I hope the OP comes back and lets us know how it worked out.
What Wbird said is the way to go. If you submit a compliant thru the 1-800 number or the website everyone sees it. That will light a fire under their butts.
I would suggest talking to the post master first. To at least give them the opportunity to fix the problem. If that gets no where go to step two.
Speaking to supervisors won’t necessarily help at all.
Thanks for the directions. I found the info under seller reports plus. I think I stumbled upon that page before but forgot how to access it. And your right it looks terrible. Ebay needs to update this stuff.
Please do not refund so quickly as it only encourages/reinforces the bad behavior.
The answer depends if it was sold and shipped via FBA or FBM. If the purchase was thru FBM and you bought the shipping label via amazon shipping services Amazon should be covering this automatically. This is a new policy Amazon started some time this year.
IF it was sold and shipped via FBA the answer should be similar, however you should contact Amazon and ask their advice on how to proceed.
Have you tried to schedule a pick up? That’s the first thing I would do to see if it works.
This is a great question and it sounds like you are on what the USPS calls a “rural route.” I worked in a city office which didn’t have rural routes so I’m not that familiar with those.
I would imagine if your delivery box is large enough you can place outgoing packages in there, I would attach a note that says something like “outgoing” or “please pick up” to make sure its not overlooked.
I would also call the post office and speak with the post master that serves your route. They should have an answer. If they do not you can call the district manager for your area and that most likely will get it fixed. If you can not find out who the district manager is or get no help there call the toll free number 1-800-ASK-USPS
IF you are doing significant postal business the USPS wants your business believe me.
Carriers are not the best source for answers so I would take whatever they say with a grain of salt. The post master has all the power for the most part. USPS employees are unionized and that can cause friction between the mgmt and the rank and file. Sometimes that friction follows them onto the street unfortunately.
Postal routes and post offices are graded/evaluated on a number of metrics and picking up packages is one of them. That is why we here people like Jay & Ryanne say that their carrier loves to pick up packages at their house. It benefits the carrier(s) & post office(s) in the long run.
Another thing that the general public doesn’t know about the USPS is that Postal Mgmt gets “bonuses” based on their post offices performance. Picking up packages is one of those metrics. Under the best of circumstances increased package volume could actually lead to more employees being hired.
The best way to get packages picked up from your house is to use the “schedule a pickup” service available on USPS.gov You can put an order in as late as 1am. The carrier for your route will get a print out in the morning for the pick up. This form later has to be turned in to the carriers supervisor, so its highly unlikely the carrier would skip your house on purpose.
IF you happen to see a USPS carrier any where and you have packages or letters you can hand them to him/her. Carriers are required to accept mail even if its not on their route.
Lastly, if a package pick up was missed call the post office and ask if you can drop off those packages at the Post Office “after hours” at the back door. Even though the post office closes at 5pm, the mail truck(s) usually don’t leave until 6pm or later. IF you live in a big city like NYC this probably won’t work, but if you’re in a suburban area it probably will.
When I was in between jobs I worked at the USPS as a carrier so I have inside knowledge on how the organization works.
Sorry I got the terms mixed up since I wasn’t looking at ebay when I wrote the first post.
When we go to “my ebay” it shows the “seller hub” which has been updated. Before seller hub was updated on the bottom right was your top 5 selling categories with dollar amounts. I’m trying to find sales data based on categories.When I went to the ebay help pages it said something like “go to my ebay, click the reporting link under selling manager pro – from the store drop down select all or choose one of the categories”
I can not find selling manager pro and I think it was removed when the seller hub was updated.
Regardless, if someone knows how to view sales by category please tell me how to do that.
IMO it depends on what you’re selling and how fast those items can sell. It also depends on how close you are to the post office. It doesn’t make sense to drive to the PO to drop off a package that only netted a profit of 3 dollars. Unless you have your mailman picking up packages every day.
IMO media items are usually worth a low ROI since they are easy to list and easy to pack/ship. Some items from this category would be video games, DvD/Blue Rays, books, and music CD’s. I can usually list those items in 1 minute or less. 50% of my sales are probably from media, and these items usually sell within one month.
An example of a poor low priced item with a low ROI would be cheap jeans. Not worth the time measuring and photographing jeans that may sell for $12.
Generally, I think it’s a good idea to have a mix of low, middle, and high priced items in your store. You never know what will attract someone. A low priced ROI item may produce a sale for a higher priced item or vice versa.
Of all the sales I’ve had on ebay I’ve only had a handful of sales for items over $100 and I think I have only had one sale of an item for over $500.
Most of my sales are between the $12-$40 range. Ebay is only a part time job for me and if I had to do this full time I would need to find better high priced items.
IF you can find the sale in your paypal account you can refund that way. Sometimes that isn’t possible though because the person may have used a “guest account”.
That happened to me once. I tried to refund via paypal and a message that said something like “this buyers credit/debit card is not set up for refunds” the buyer had to contact paypal directly to fix the situation.
Ebay also notably lowered fees on video game consoles to 4%. Not sure when that happened, but I’m sure it was at least double before.
Not sure where they would be getting competition on this category from. Game stop sells their consoles at higher prices and provides warranties.
Fees on video games are at 9.15% which is the highest fees ebay charges I think.
I looked at your store briefly and one thing you can try is setting some of those listings to “buyer ID’s are private”
Specifically, your categories AA/recovery and religion. Also make sure to note that in the “item description” field. (Not the title since that space is more valuable)
Write something simple like “Buyer ID’s are private on this listing”
I have been doing this for a long time, I don’t know if it works or not, but I have noticed that other sellers seem to miss this option in their listings. I even saw one seller write something like “Do not leave feedback as it will allow everyone to see what you bought”
I recommend this for any categories that some may view as personal, embarrassing, religion, medical, weight loss, sexual, explicit, self help, to name just a few.
Sellers can’t hide their feedback, but they can hide feedback for specific listings. I think people get confused on this point and that’s why we don’t see more private listings.
I don’t know for sure, but I think that if you have too many claims with “ship station” or whatever ebay calls it, they will black list you.
However, the USPS can not black list you regardless of how many claims you have. They may make the claims process harder though.
Jay brings up some good points. I would also add that if the price of the house is significantly below market value according to comps in the area, something is seriously wrong.
I would guess there’s an issue with the house that would prevent people from getting traditional lending from a bank. Some of those issues may be, title issues (especially contested easements), poor/broken septic system, contaminated water (if on a well system), exposed asbestos, to name just a few.
It’s nice to think the best of people, but usually that type of thinking is wrong.
Some houses are so far beyond repair, it would actually be cheaper to tear it down and build new.
