So struck a deal with someone on another website to send them an old Uher 4000 reel to reel portable recorder to the UK for the cost of shipping. Looked it up thru paypal and it indicated that the cheapest option would be UPS at about $60. Great.

A month or two passes and he sends the money for the agreed to shipping cost and I package up the device. Decided to take it to the UPS store to ship since I'd have to drop it off anyway. Get up to the counter and the clerk tells me the cheapest they have is about $170 acting as an intermediary for USPS. A bit agog, I asked if their rates had changed radically in the past few months and to confirm that my weight / dimensions weren't radically off of the earlier estimate (they were good estimates). Rates hadn't changed, but that was the best they could do.

Went back home and pulled it up again thru the shipping via paypal and sure enough still about $60. Purchased the label and dropped it back off on Tuesday. Arrived at the other end outside London today.

Z,

Nothing surprising here. You're comparing the price of UPS via Paypal to USPS via the UPS Store acting as its intermediary. It isn't an apples to apples comparison. Surprised that you didn't have the UPS give you pricing for shipping via UPS.

Robert

Yea, it's weird that the UPS store didn't give you the UPS retail rate as an option, although that would have been more than $60 also, and maybe it was actually more than $170!

PayPal probably gets discounts on UPS retail rates. You likely also get a discount if you just have a UPS online account.

Walking up to the counter is ALWAYS THE MOST EXPENSIVE WAY TO SHIP.

As an example of the rough discounts possible, eBay (obviously only for eBay items) has such a ridiculously good rate for FedEx 2-Day (at least for some package sizes/weights), that it can be cheaper to ship via 2-Day than Ground (and I've often upgraded packages even if it costs me a little bit to do so).

UPS was trying to ship via USPS??? WTF?

They said that the USPS cross ship was their cheapest retail option - trust me, I asked. The rest of the options only got dumber.

Moral of story - of course retail is probably going to be more expensive than online. That said, never did I expect it to be by a factor of 3x.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2022 09:16PM by Z.

UPS Stores are franchises and not bound to standard UPS rates. You pay extra for the convenience of using them.

If you want to ship via UPS in future, box and label on your own, then just drop off at the UPS store (or schedule a pickup or drop at any place accepting packages (they should be listed on UPS’ website). You can get a free UPS account to take advantage of the more reasonable rates, or you can ship through eBay’s account by generating a label there to get those commercial rates.

You can also use Pirate Ship. They offer commercial rates/discounts site is very easy to use.

Cary,

I looked at Pirate Ship. They can only do a single package at a time. Definitely not workable for a company that needs to do multi-piece shipments, i.e. two packages (46lb and a 30 lbs) going to the customer as a single shipment. The rates are competitive, though. There is that.

Robert

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...or drop at any place accepting packages (they should be listed on UPS’ website).

Yea, I used to drop off at my local CVS since the hours are better than my local UPS store. That is, until a package sat for there for days without getting picked up... Finally went back in and had them find the package behind the counter and give it back to me.

If it was easier to get a drop off receipt out of them, I might still do it (so at least the package has been scanned and then it's on UPS if it's not moving), but it felt like half the time they had to go get the scanner from a different part of the store, or they didn't know how to use it.