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I am currently considering a move to Hawaii but haven't been able to find concrete information concerning this very important detail (for me). I am self employed and ship approximately 100 small packages a week via USPS First Class and Priority mail mostly to the continental US. USPS.com tells me that Priority would take 3-4 business days and that First Class would take 4-5 business days to ship to the east coast.
What is your experience with USPS? What are the shipping time like? Have you experienced lots of lost or missing packages?
All of your questions can be answered by thw USPS or their website
Like I said in my original post: "USPS.com tells me that Priority would take 3-4 business days and that First Class would take 4-5 business days to ship to the east coast."
I was hoping for some verification that the USPS estimates are in line with people's experiences. And the USPS definitely would not advertise that they have a higher rate of lost/missing parcels.
Last edited by hopefullymovingsoon; 04-02-2017 at 08:57 AM..
Those times might work from Honolulu, if you're on an outer island, you could add a day to those estimates. They have gotten better about getting things there quicker, but frequently they are a day or two off on their estimates.
From what I can figure, most small packages and letters go via air to the mainland, from there they may be sorted into trucks and planes, but I don't know for certain.
As of a couple of years ago, all mail has to go to Honolulu to get sorted and then sent on. Even if it's to an address in the same town it was mailed from. If I want to send a birthday card to my friend in town, it has to go several days earlier since it takes a day to get to the airport on my island, fly to Honolulu, sorted, sent back via plane and then back out to my local post office. Which is roughly 3-4 business days, I guess.
Figure everything at a 4-5 day time and it's probably more accurate, especially if you're on an island other than Oahu.
They're pretty good about not missing or mauling any packages. I've not ever had anything go missing and very few show up damaged.
The new integrated systems where folks pay digitally and then the program that takes in the money also prints out the address and gets the discount on postage from the post office is helpful, too.
Like I said in my original post: "USPS.com tells me that Priority would take 3-4 business days and that First Class would take 4-5 business days to ship to the east coast."
I was hoping for some verification that the USPS estimates are in line with people's experiences. And the USPS definitely would not advertise that they have a higher rate of lost/missing parcels.
I live on oahu, own my own business, and have a lot of packages going to and from the mainland. Those estimates are in line with my experiences.
I've seen much more damaged parcels than actual missing ones. There are situations where packages are really stolen, but that does not happen frequently. More common is packages that aren't packaged well, so the label gets torn off (and they can't figure out where to ship it) or the contents gets damaged or falls out.
People are frequently surprised at how fast the priority/first class packages go from hawaii to east coast. I've seen many 3 day deliveries. In my experience, there is no difference in timing between the two. The main reason to use priority over first class is first class has a weight limit of 16 ounces.
We moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Kauai about 3 weeks ago. The packages that we sent in the USPS Flat Rate Priority boxes arrived within a week of shipping them. We had many other packages, sent by "Retail Ground". These were lower priority items that didn't fit in a flat rate box, and we were looking for the cheapest way to send them. We have received about half of those boxes so far (shipped 3 1/2 weeks ago now). They have trickled in over several days, even though we sent them all on the same day. The rest are still showing "in transit". Keeping our fingers crossed that they show up soon. Some of the boxes (both Priority and Retail Ground) showed up pretty beaten up, and we lost a couple of items to breakage. I would highly recommend packing any breakables very carefully. We thought we had them protected well enough (bubble wrap, etc) but still had some losses.
shipping parcel post "retail ground" means they're sending the packages by boat. 3 weeks to 1 month is normal. They accumulate and move the packages by large truck to a port, then it rides on the boat , then it's offloaded and sent to a distribution center and sent to you. Each of these 3 stages is at least a week.
My recommendation is to not use this method if possible. The longer transit time greatly increases the chance of loss, damage, or theft. Unless the items you're shipping are unusually large and doesnt' fit into the standard flat rate boxes, you should always ship priority instead, as the cost difference doesn't justify the potential for loss and delay.
Thank you everyone for letting me know your experiences!
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