“But I ship arms to Central American rebels, is USPS flat rate for me?”

Finally found the spot I wanted to go off on last time I mentioned the U.S. Post Office and as I remember, it’s as exciting as a DOT traffic report. Then I saw a recent New York Times article pointing out that they’re still holding on despite competition from the net and other carriers like FedEx, etc.

They also see sites like eBay helping their package delivery service, although this type of delivery only accounts for 10% of their business. So then why are they pushing exactly that in these ads? Really. 70 lb boxes. That’s what businesses ship all the time? Let’s try documents that weigh less than half a pound in 9 x 12 envelope for $200 Alex.

And if you assume that to be the case, then forget the confusing message of flat rate regardless of object messaging and go right at the other services on price. One overnite letter New York to California: $17.50 with USPS. FedEx or USPS? $26.78. Hello, McFly.

Given that difference, which service are you using?

And while I’m in a fix-it kinda mood, all three sites suck when it comes to their UX and functionality. WAY too much going on with submenu after submenu. I think we’ve grown so accustomed to offering people choices that we now give them too many. There’s redundancy and then there’s you’re killing me.

I show up to ship something, I expect a ship now or fee estimator right there when I first enter. I don’t need several hurdles to determine which country I’m coming in from or what supplies I need to order.

The USPS doesn’t have the country problem, but geez, if all the Asian dating sites I use know where I’m visiting from, how hard is it to throw a little of that same geo-targeting in the next site updates?

How about putting dimensions on each choice for packaging too. Know how long it took me to find the size of a 9 x 12 overnite envelope? It’s actually 9.5” x 12.5” but you wouldn’t know it without clicking through 25 pages first.

Look, I expect these things to be fixed so when it comes time to move my bride here I know which box is best for all her stuff. Hopefully, it’s all under 70 lbs.