I have had it with the massive Post Office problems. I just sent the following to all my U.S. customers:
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 3/03/2025
First, some background. When I started in mail order 57 long years ago (and in this business 35 years ago), the U.S. Post Office was incredible! It was inexpensive to send packages, and everything got where it was going, in the time promised. And yes, if you did not pack that well, packages sometimes got damaged, which is why we started packing so great, and because of that we almost never had ANY damaged packages.
In fact, in 2000, the U.S. Post Office had a "flat rate" box, that could hold around 50 folded one-sheets, or around 200 lobby cards, and they only charged $3, no matter where in the U.S. you sent it. But over the next 15 years, the U.S. Post Office went downhill in many ways. First and foremost, the prices kept increasing dramatically. Second, shipping times started getting longer, and more and more arrived "late". Worst of all, there were more damaged packages, including ours.
But in the past few years, things have gone from bad to terrible. Prices are MUCH higher, delivery times are FAR longer, and FAR more packages are lost or damaged. Worst of all, the U.S. Post Office's tracking system has imploded. Packages get scanned in, and then there is no more tracking for weeks, and rightfully customers are furious, and they want a refund, but we can't even put in an insurance claim for 30 days, so we are caught in the middle.
And in the past few WEEKS, things have gotten SO bad that we feel we must now take a major step:
1) Effective immediately, WE WILL ONLY QUOTE UPS ON DOMESTIC ORDERS (within the U.S.). If you insist on having your order sent USPS (the U.S. Post Office) we will do so, but ONLY IF YOU SAY YOU WILL WAIT UNTIL AFTER WE HAVE FILED AN INSURANCE CLAIM (and collected on it) IF YOUR ORDER IS LOST OR DELAYED.
2) WHY are we doing this? Because, while some UPS orders in the U.S. are delayed or damage, it is not NEARLY as bad as with the U.S. Post Office. And with UPS, we have a personal representative who fights for us (and gets many orders located and moving) and we have no one in the U.S. Post Office who does the same.
3) WHY are non-U.S. customers excluded from this (for now)? That is because the U.S. Post Office often does as good or better a job that UPS on out of the U.S. orders. But this varies from country to country, so we give non-U.S. customers the choice of UPS or USPS.
4) We VERY much hope the U.S. Post Office "gets its act together", and that we can resume offering their service. The Postmaster General has resigned and this entire massive problem is starting to get national coverage, so MAYBE they will work on fixing this broken system.
5) The only "silver lining" is that, for now, just about all the packages HAVE been showing up and getting delivered. But a very few have been permanently lost, which is why we insist on full insurance on all orders (unless you have your own private insurance that covers it).
To sum up:
1) STARTING IMMEDIATELY WE WILL ONLY QUOTE UPS ON U.S. ORDERS.
2) YOU CAN HAVE US QUOTE USPS (the Post Office), BUT ONLY IF YOU REQUEST IT, AND IF YOU ACCEPT YOU CAN'T GET A REFUND UNTIL AFTER WE COLLECT ON INSURANCE.
