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Winners Circle
The Downside of UPS
It's Wednesday, and I feel like a good ranting. Just to be fair I'd like to start off with some positives for using UPS. For one, they are generally more cost-effective on larger items--- when the packaging is yours. They insure items for up to $100 for no additional charge. If you use the mailbox services through their store locations, it is treated as an address not as a post office box (though you will pay a premium for this service), and you can call during business hours to check for arrivals. They provide carrier pick-ups at your location. They have a few supplies to offer free of charge, such as labels and protective pockets. They have also teamed up with eBay to allow access directly through your paypal account from which to pay for shipping and printing of your labels.
Unfortunately, UPS does not always provide the best shipping option, not only in terms of cost but more often in terms of service (or the lack of it). When I first began selling on eBay I tried using UPS for all my shipping needs because the store location was very convenient for me, much more so than the post office. Once I began to sell and ship many items at once, it quickly became clear to me that UPS was over-charging. I would enter the store with several packages, and the clerk would offer shipping options, always fast to mention that UPS was the least expensive option in most cases. The clerk would quote figures for me and the post office totals never matched my preliminary sums gathered online and incidentally were often more costly than UPS too. I guess I naively thought that UPS would charge the actual post office shipping since I used them for so many other shipments and services. The clerks would never tell me the real calculation for the surcharge but I thought if UPS were going to add any surcharge at all it would be very minimal. Not so. Often the charges came to 15% or more. I was already giving a slice of the pie to eBay and paypal. Now UPS was cutting in on my profit and BIG time!
I complained to UPS via an email. I received a confused reponse as if the complaint were not clear. Finally, after another email, I received a more coherent reply stating that UPS corporate has little to no control over how UPS stores choose to run their businesses because they are basically franchised. This tells me that the stores can get away with anything, including drag the corporate UPS down with them, and UPS will not intervene.
Well, corporate UPS did intervene, and this is really funny. I happened to be a secret shopper at the time that this incident occurred. The company I shopped for gave me an assignment to visit my specific UPS shortly after I registered the complaint. I was forthright about the job, but was told to continue. Only one problem, the assignment which is very detailed and specific did not address the complaint whatsoever. The shop was designed to test UPS to see if they overcharged, but spoke directly to UPS ground shipping and with my own packaging. So, UPS did a great job with it, because there was nothing to mess up. The assignment was idiot-proof and the dillemma persisted.
My solution was to pay and print my own post office labels, adhere them to my packaging and drop them off with the clerk as I made my other UPS purchases. However, I was soon asked to stop bringing in prepaid packages and told that most retail locations no longer accept outgoing prepaid post office packages for drop off. They stated that the mailman will no longer pick them up there, even though he'll be picking up the ones which were paid for at the UPS store, surcharge and all. When I asked a UPS representative about this at the eBay LIVE! show, she very nonchalantly stated that though she had not previously been made aware of this, it was no concern of hers anyway. That it was between the retail location and the post office, because, once again, the UPS stores were only affiliated with UPS corporate.
These memories have all been refreshed though by a new incident which happened today. I went to the UPS store as I have a thousand times before and asked what the charge for packing and boxing my $26 item would cost me? I figured I would find out about the shipping cost next, but we never got to next because I was laid out from the initial whopping $25 just to pack and box the item!!! So, picking myself up off the floor and regaining my composure, I calmly asked, "How bout just the box?" because it's been very hard for me to find a good box this size. Well, that would only be $12. We're talking normal mid-size box here(basically 30X30X12), and though I'm considerably stunned, I ask for the box anyway. The clerk proceeds to bring me 2 boxes of average size. Quizically, I ask about this. Oh, she was going to build a box with these 2. Well, if it's all the same to you (hell-o!) I could do this with boxes I already have and for free! So, thank you, but no thank you. Are there seriously people out there who would pay $25 for this and in this circumstance? UPS has got to be out of its mind!
Am I saying that the shopkeeper of the little UPS store on the corner has no right to make money on extra third party jobs, or slightly irregular boxes? No. I'm saying that if that little UPS store would impose smaller more reasonable surcharges to post office packages instead of the exaggerated fees they currently charge (or God-forbid charge actual shipping!) they might stand to build a stronger, broader base of satisfied customers. As for the cost of packaging, perhaps they could also ease up on those wildly inflated prices as well.
Am I saying that I'll never use the "services" of UPS again? Isn't that like saying I'll never use eBay again because their fees keep rising? I never said I'd stop using eBay and I probably will keep using UPS too, especially if the price is right. But I will say, if there were a petion against rising UPS fees, today I'd sign it. I will also admit, that the more problems I encounter with UPS, seems the less I need them.
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