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I used to order smaller quantities of bagged seed from a big seed warehouse 200 miles away.
They recommended UPS, Fed-ex, or Speed -E.
About 5 years ago, they recommended shipping my order by freight truck to the trucking company terminal 35 miles away and I would drive my pick up to get it.
The rates by the other 3 had gone sky high and were no longer recommended by the warehouse.
They also had problems cuz most seed comes in 50 lb bags and the 3 didn't want anything over 40 pounds.( I was only ordering a few bags of specialty seed)
Well, this isn't quite a mail order story, but, when the Schwan's delivery man pulls in our driveway, his GPS tells him that the signal has been lost. Maybe I do live in the middle of nowhere.
Since I have been working as a census enumerator in a rural area, I'm surprised there isn't more mail order mix-ups. I have seen addresses for people whose residence is in one county, mailing address for a town in a 2nd county, and phone number that is associated with a 3rd county. I realize the phone # isn't part of the address, but many times folks are asked for a phone number when ordering something by mail-order.
So, for those of you who live out beyond the UPS/FedEx delivery areas probably already know the pain of ordering things online or by mail. I'm talking about astronomical shipping fees or just plain not being able to get it delivered! It's a real bummer.
Well, here's the problem, and it's 100% artificial... most retailers use UPS/FedEx by default and policy even though there are some pretty steep restrictions and it's not always cost-effective for the consumer.
If you stick to your guns and calculate your own shipping charges via USPS mail, you can normally get them to mail you the items at 1/4-1/2 the price of the major shipping companies.
USPS will also allow for delivery to a PO Box for those of us without a street address (or even a street to have an address on!). FedEx/UPS require a *valid* street address... sometimes you can fake this with a made-up street address (my fav Notastreet Ave LOL), but most time it'll get kicked out of the system. So much easier to use the post office.
If you can get in contact with the retailer's shipping manager, you can almost always argue your way into cost effective USPS postage. You just have to be firmly polite about it. Sometimes they'll tack on a small handling fee or whatnot because they have to go out of their way to use the mail... but it still ends up saving you lots over the major carrier fees.
It's funny, but many people seem to forget that AK is part of the United States... and therefore subject to the same postage rates (including flat rate boxes) as the rest of the country. So, they end up tacking on exorbitant fees like they were sending stuff to Mars Don't let them get away with it!
This is what happens when you live in a communist nation, the gov controls everythign !
I have a feeling we haven't seen anything yet !
We let them take over private auto , allow unions to rule over business and control wages , teach our kids things we didn't even talk about in the dark alleys a couple decades ago .
How man commish or town hall meeting have any of you been to ? These ' servants' do whatever they want to because we allow them to control us with our silence .
Since I have been working as a census enumerator in a rural area, I'm surprised there isn't more mail order mix-ups.
We have a hunting camp which used to have no address. Everyone in two townships knew it as "the place across from X" where X is a cattle dealer old settler descendant whom of course everyone of consequence knows.
The county gave it an address 3 years ago and we dutifully put up an address sign.
We stopped by there a few weeks ago to find a note from the Census enumerator, call him in Big Town in the next county.
So we dutifully did so, prepared to read all the numbers on the sheet as well as the address and after a little bit of this the enumerator said "Are you the place across from Mrs. X?"
It doesn't help that there are no phones out here either, that's for sure. We have a cell, but are so out of service area that we don't get reception until we're almost in the big city... or standing just right on a ridge about an hour away on a cloudy day when we get one bar of signal bounce. It would cost us a butt-load of cash to have the landline's extended out to our place and it's not like rural phone service is all that reliable either. I give them my cell number and tell them that we check voice mail maybe twice a month, so it's better to email us if they need to know something ASAP.
Both FedEx and UPS hand off packages to the USPS in Anchorage via thier cartage agreement, which is great for deliveries... but the same agreement doesn't go the other way, so just forget trying to return anything unless you want to drive 4 hours into the city to drop it off at the depot.
I've been fairly lucky to find retailers that will actually ship USPS if you send them email and ask for it specifically. Might take a little bit of doing, but most of them want your business enough to use the cheaper service. The only issue I had was with Dell customer support... it took over 5 weeks to get all that sorted out, and we finally just had them mail us the replacement parts and we fixed the computer ourselves!!
Anything addressed to us, no matter where it's actually addressed, goes to the PO anyway... and our post mistress just holds it or puts it in our box. There's no home delivery for sure! Since our mail comes in by bush plane, anything heavier than 50 lbs normally requires us to make additional arrangements with the pilot and pay a little extra for "freight"... but real freight normally come by river or large bush plane out here since the "highway" isn't paved and most truckers don't like it. It's a real treat unloading a new sofa off a barge at the river landing or your new ATV off the skids of a bush plane
An we don't even live in a county... the area that we live in is an "unincorporated burough" which is just government speak for the rest of Alaska (about 80%) that isn't an incorporated burough (which is only maybe 20% right around the cities). We're just sort of in a "region" -- try explaining that to government officials and insurance companies outside Alaska.... JOY!
We have a cell, but are so out of service area that we don't get reception until we're almost in the big city... or standing just right on a ridge about an hour away on a cloudy day when we get one bar of signal bounce.
Since our mail comes in by bush plane, anything heavier than 50 lbs normally requires us to make additional arrangements with the pilot and pay a little extra for "freight"... but real freight normally come by river or large bush plane out here since the "highway" isn't paved and most truckers don't like it. It's a real treat unloading a new sofa off a barge at the river landing or your new ATV off the skids of a bush plane
Good lord. And I was concerned that the town I might move to
is a little too rural for me at this stage of my life because I'd have to
drive 20 minutes to the nearest shopping center
Thanks for the perspective!!
Hmmm... 20 minutes on a good day would barely get me to the village Post Office, "airport", and gas station/trading post. There's a dump, a public well, a pay phone, and a coin-operated laundry (when it works) and shower (when it works). That's it for services of any kind for a full 156 miles (over half of that unpaved) until you get to the city - literally *nothing* but trees and a few cabins between here and there
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Don't let them get away with it!
