Spring 2024 Shipping Prices

UPS vs US Mail:

In a nutshell, US Mail tracking and delivery times suck. Scans are often missed and shipments disappear for days. All of our mail would be handled by the USPS sort center in Orlando Florida which in the past has only scanned 65% of our packages that pass through there. At one point in late November 2023, they did not scan anything at all for days on end, resulting in hundreds of calls, emails and social media "where's my stuff" inquiries. We had Priority Mail packages take over 3 weeks to be delivered instead of 3 days. USPS was totally non responsive to inquiries made to track things down. Trying to reach someone in person to get answers is an exercise in futility.

Search USPS delays, and you will find article upon article on how bad things have gotten nationwide since they started "Ground Advantage" and destroyed the sortation network that existed in the past.

Many times, we only saw the "In transit" scan repeated for days with NO update to where a package actually is. They are also infamous for giving an "expected delivery date/time" message that has no realistic chance of ever happening which results in more frustration for you and us.

We tried a shipment via USPS recently for a customer that requested it in on 3/15/24 and here's the results:

Departed USPS Regional Facility

No response for tracking updates on the national or local level, package had zero updates for 13 days. Customer paid $1.89 less in shipping for this result.

In addition, when they lose or damage a package, claims are virtually impossible to successfully file with them. 

For the above reasons alone, we started shipping exclusively through UPS in December 2023. 99.8% of our shipments arrive on time and without issue. The .02% of packages that were lost or damaged were able to be resolved within a matter of days.

We know there is an additional cost (in most cases a few dollars) to using their service, but we feel it is worth it in the end. The rates on our site are discounted and not the over the counter rate you'd pay walking into your local UPS Store.

We work tirelessly to get orders shipped as quickly as we can, just as we have done for the past twenty years.

John