PSA: Some UPS Stores will rip you off hard

[evident]

I had the same experience once, I sold some old PC parts on ebay and I just wanted to get them out the door as fast as possible for the buyers so I packed them up nice and neat myself, priced it out on the site, and asked mum to drop them off at the place down the road (Shipping N More or something) and they ended up charging me like double what the site gave me, I was fucking floored lol, I wouldn't have been surprised to be charged more but it literally doubled.

I really need to just start printing out shipping labels online. I wonder how much a good accurate scale would cost. right now to estimate i use my digital scale for human weight and hold the item, and then measure again and subtract, lol. i dont' think it's accurate enough for me to go with it though.

also, what happens when you estimate wrong? will they just refuse to ship it or what?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Did you report the store to UPS?

 

[Spineshank]

Biggest issue is finding the proper size box or mailing tube for what you want to ship. I had a heck of time finding boxes of the right diameter and length to fit a 42" or so long golf driver. It is easy to find tubes to fit one or two irons in, as they are short. Fairway woods take up more diameter and length. It would end up in my charging $30 (or adding into the bid price as free shipping included) since the box itself would be $4-$8 plus the shipping cost and whatever the store adds to pack it which I would only use for heavy items. For your laptop the factory box, inside an ordinary cardboard box with some peanuts / bubblewrap would be just fine.

I once sold a putter. Took it in with no box. It cost me almost $50 to have it shipped and packed and everything else.

 

[evident]

Did you report the store to UPS?

no, would they do anything? seems like this is a common practice and they look the other way.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

You guys do know that the store doesn't even pay the listed rate? I worked for place that sent some stuff out UPS but no more than 10 or so packages a day and they got 70% off the quoted rate. A package that the website would quote as $10 would only cost them $3 to ship.

Right, the actual cost of shipping is no where near what they charge consumers. Look at businesses like amazon ect, They can ship moderately sized items for $4-$10. Go to UPS or Fedex and you'll be quoted 2-3x that.
We the end users are the ones that get screwed. Which I why I don't use FedEx or UPs to ship anything if I don't have to. Everything goes USPS.

 

[bruceb]

I once sold a putter. Took it in with no box. It cost me almost $50 to have it shipped and packed and everything else.

Yup, that is why I figure about $30-$40 in shipping and handling into my minimum bid price. And when I can, I try to find a box that can be reused. Will not ship out of country as that can entail many issues.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

We the end users are the ones that get screwed. Which I why I don't use FedEx or UPs to ship anything if I don't have to. Everything goes USPS.

Do you only grow your own food because farmers sell their produce to grocery stores for substantially less than what the grocery store charges you? Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a volume discount?

PS: USPS charges you more to mail a letter than they charge companies to mail a letter...It's called bulk rate.

 

[dbailey]

Just buy yourselves a digital scale. Open a Fed-Ex account up online. Box your stuff up. Weigh it. Print a label. Drop it off for free at these places that are ripping you off. It's not that hard.

 

[alkemyst]

Maybe they aren't allowed to use scissors yet?

 

[rockyct]

70% off the site rate? You sure on that? I've worked for UPS for quite a number of years and have worked side by side with many of the account execs. I've never seen incentives that high, not even to our huge volume customers (think thousands of packages a day with specials in the 10's of thousands), no UPS store is going to come close to that type of volume. We have to make money somehow...

Yeah, I'm 100% sure. I saw some of the finance statements later on after our supervisor was saying how he was quite happy he got 70% off. We also had a quote from another freight company that was basically 70% off so part of it was a matching thing.

We actually got the rate really because of UPS freight and for vendor shipments using our UPS account so it was just an added bonus for the 10 packages we shipped out UPS ground. We would get many/many shipments of stuff daily. Probably about two or more pallets UPS freight daily, and about 30-60 packages daily UPS ground. All of the freight and most of the UPS ground packages used our UPS account. So while we didn't really ship a lot of stuff out, we did have a ton of stuff shipped to us which got the whole account to be 70% off.

 

[alkemyst]

Don't think you understood what you read.

 

[Axon]

Think of them like a 7 eleven. They are usually close and far more convenient, but you're taking a bath on anything you purchase there.

 

[Jaepheth]

Think of them like a 7 eleven. They are usually close and far more convenient, but you're taking a bath on anything you purchase there.

A slurpie bath would be both cold and impractical. You'd be ridiculously sticky afterward.

 

[Kanalua]

I love UPS stores...for dropping off pre-paid UPS packages! There's one right across the street from my office.

 

[Triumph]

OP, UPS did the same thing to me, buying some motorcycle luggage from a guy in LA, shipping to Virginia. I had all the weights and cubes from the seller, I put it into UPS to get a quote, it was 90 bucks. He took it to the store, they told him it was "oversize" and had to break it down into 2 boxes, now it was something like $75 per box. Why didn't the online tool tell me it was oversize? Something like that is easy to determine with a rectangular box. A-holes!

Then I looked at some place online that had the same luggage, they could ship it for $25 if I bought it from them. WTF?

 

[CPA]

I'll definitely be going to staples next time.
.

No, you can't do that. Think of all the mom-and-pop stores that will suffer because you are going to an evil, huge chain that has a lower price. You know, like Walmart.

/sarcasm

 

[Shawn]

I just buy the label online and then drop the box off an whatever ups store is closest. Convenient and doesn't cost me anything extra.