I remember that, we discussed how weird it was.
That’s not how it normally works. For a short period of time you’re correct. The rest of the time another story. Though most stuff seems to get taking forever nowadays at least with the US Postal Service. I’m blaming that on the idiot in charge of the USPS. You know the one that states he’s bringing it up to date but trying to sink it because he has tons of money in the competition.
Actually even before that odd time… Most of my media mail packages make it within 5 days on average it seems.
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What I’ve seen in the last month shipping by media mail or economy shipping as Ebay shows it is a lot of inconsistancy in time to deliver. A package may go across the country to California in 4 days or take 21 days to arrive. This past week 2 buyers messaged me because the tracking had not been updated in more than a week and I didn’t know what to tell them except that I had shipped it out the next business day and that I would call the local post office to see if they could tell me anything and their answer was the same on both cases, that the package was not lost but was in transit to the next facility. That’s their standard answer now but they can’t say where it’s at or when it will be delivered. The USPS is doing a terrible job of updating tracking right now and it’s extremely frustrating for me as well as the customer because you are pretty much at their mercy. Anyone having much trouble with first class or priority shipping lately. I just wondered because I’ve been thinking about going back to them for shipping comics.
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I once mailed a set of WW2 history books to a customer about 7 miles from my house. I forgot the exact duration, but it took them over a week to arrive via media mail. If it hadn’t been an ebay sell, I could have driven them over there on my way to work faster, lol.
On the other hand, I’ve had stuff arrive fast via media mail. I’ve decided it’s unpredictable to some degree.
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To be honest all my priority packages are taking 5-7 days. It’s getting ridiculous.
I’ve had quite a few packages come from Texas that never showed any activity until it was waiting at the post office for me. 4 or 5 separate times and always from Texas.
I’ve had several like that lately that had not been updated on the tracking for 10 days or so and then they just showed delivered. I don’t know why they aren’t getting scanned more along the way to the destination. I thought that was part of the tracking process that when they reached another facility they were scanned and when they left to go to the next one they got scanned again but apparently not anymore.
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I’ve got one now I mailed the morning of April 6th, it still just says “label created.” I messaged the customer and told them it was already mailed. I suppose it will start showing right before it arrives. Yes, my priority is taking over 4 days in many cases.
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Just think how that looks to the buyer. It looks like you printed a label and never mailed it. Especially if it’s a book that recently got hot. They think you’re going to relist it and get more money. It’s one of the reasons I always hand it to the postal employee and get a receipt.
Maybe it’s like postal worker extra credit. They just grab one if they deliver their normal stuff for the day quickly.
I just received this message from a buyer I sent a comic to. Looks like I got my first media mail violation. I checked the tracking and this package didn’t get delivered to his house and for some reason had to be dropped off at the post office which is apparently where they inspected it and added additional postage.
The buyer was cool and I refunded his $3.00 and apologized.
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Do it a couple more times for a fun letter from the postmaster general.
Yeah I saw your post about your experience. My thoughts now are this is just one over zealous postal employee so I’m thinking I will continue to use media mail until I have another bad experience. I mean ive sent out hundreds of comics and never had an issue so the chance of another problem seems worth taking.
The one time I got caught it was sending a box of old IDW/dream wave transformers comics to a parent who wanted them for their child who was a big transformers fan. I was giving them away at like $1/issue shipped.
What’s an “incidental” announcement? That sounds to me like an add for an upcoming book in the series or related book by the same publisher. Which is basically what IDW and Dreamwave did at the time in those books.
But I didn’t get busted…the buyer did. They held the box at the PO until they paid the difference. So are they tracking both sides of the equation, including who sent the book like @drunkwooky ?
In full transparency I refunded the entire order to compensate for their expense and time.
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Also, I’m full disclosure I don’t send comics media mail that I’d have an issue with someone with greasy dirty rough hands thumbing taking it out of the sleeve thumbing through a comic then shoving it all back together.
It’s very rare I do anymore. Typically graphic novels with no ads.
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This was a $10 book so no big deal. I basically broke even after the refund. He didn’t even ask for money back but I felt that was the right thing to do. I was under the impression that it couldn’t be delivered to his address and then they opened it but if they didn’t deliver because of the media mail issue I should have refunded him everything.
After this I will be sending any more expensive raw books with first class mail. I think I’ll still use media mail for any cheap books.
In all honesty, the actual threat of enforcement by USPS isn’t what stopped me
From doing it. Eventually my local usps started sending my media mail packages back to me and making me take them to the post office and re-send them paying the difference. Except it wasn’t the difference, they made me pay for a new label as the shipping on the first label was already applied to its trip from my house to the post office and back to my house.
So after a couple weeks of a massive pain in the ass with double the necessary trips to the post office and losing basically all profit on the shipments, I stopped and I’ve never sent media mail again. It doesn’t take much hassle for me to cease a course of action. I think it took two international scammers on low dollar books for me to cease all
International sales whatsoever on my eBay account.
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I drive about 10 minutes out of my way to hit one of the more rural post office so I don’t have any problems. It’s always slow and it’s the same staff everyday. If I have a particularly busy weekend with lots of books I sold I’ll bring them a box of donuts to keep them happy.
Some time late last year the post office returned 20 or so media rate packages with comics in them to my home and told me I had to send them first class or priority and cannot use media rate for comics. Now I ship everything first class but will sneak in some at media rate if the package is going to go over 16oz. Sometimes I send it priority too but it really depends on how much the buyer pays for the shipping. My invoices do it automatically $5.95 for the first comic(or flat item) and 50 cents each additional comic. First class can get up to $6 when you get into the 14oz range and the zip code is far enough away. If they buy enough comics to get into the $9 shipping charge range I will send it priority. Did that yesterday with the guy who bought 8 We Live #1 2nd and 3rd prints. Shipping charges were $9.45 so it went priority