How do yall deal with large quantities of packages?

[Mgkfanboy43]

So im doing anywhere between 10-20 decent sized packages a day. It is a pain in the ass for me to go up to the post office everyday during their hours, then make 10 trips back and forth from my car to inside the office for dropoff.

Is there an easier way? i dont think i can keep this up much longer, the profits are good but my god its a pain in the ass especially since i live in a populated area the traffic is always heavy and the post office is always really busy and it isnt going to get any easier with winter, holidays and snow all on its way.

How much is it to have a carrier pickup packages? DO they charge per package?

[dallis]

USPS Carriers pickup for free. I would leave a note in my mailbox saying "10 packages on front stoop, please pickup" and they would.

After I started to worry about theft I built a wooden storage box on my front porch under my bench and they'd pick it up from there. Worked well, only missed it a few times a year.

Or you can purchase a mailbox for the street that allows you to put a fair amount of packages in it.

[jakobrockz]

You can make a USPS pickup order on their website (Priority mail only, but even if you only had one priority mail package you can make the order and they'll grab the rest of your mail as well)

[SaiJin]

It's free for USPS pick up and you can even just leave a note or talk to your mailman that you'll need a package pick up.

[MM78]

You could also WAIT till the end of the day and take all your packages in 1 trip....that's what I do. Or do a Free USPS Pick Up for all your packages.

[Mgkfanboy43]

Okay thnx everyone, I use FedEx to cuz sometimes it's way cheaper to ship, are their pickups free?

[vettefever17]

Originally Posted by MM78

You could also WAIT till the end of the day and take all your packages in 1 trip....that's what I do. Or do a Free USPS Pick Up for all your packages.

Everyone is right about the free pick-up. MM mentioned a method I used back in the holidays. I was shipping 10 plus medium sized priority boxes on top of my normal mailers. I got with the postmaster to find out when the main truck came in. I would pull around to the back where they route cars parked. They got to where they knew me and did not mind. This may help. It was all one trip.

As for Fedex, I believe my local box truck ran roughly around 4:30 to 5. Just find out when the drivers are usually there. They are most of the time punctual.

[james13v]

Originally Posted by vettefever17

Everyone is right about the free pick-up. MM mentioned a method I used back in the holidays. I was shipping 10 plus medium sized priority boxes on top of my normal mailers. I got with the postmaster to find out when the main truck came in. I would pull around to the back where they route cars parked. They got to where they knew me and did not mind. This may help. It was all one trip.

As for Fedex, I believe my local box truck ran roughly around 4:30 to 5. Just find out when the drivers are usually there. They are most of the time punctual.

Every post office I've been to has allowed people to pull their cars up right to the rear docking bay.

[Startacus]

My mail carrier knows me pretty well and I'm known to chase her down if I have to :-) She knows me by a lot of names too... Mr. Shipping Dept is her fav. Usually if its a lot of packages ready to go I put them into the white U$P$ mail bucket on my front porch and leave a taped note in the mailbox with the flag up. She will either empty the bucket and return it - or bring a bucket and exchange it. So far so good going on 6 years now. One thing to note is I adhere to the eB shipping shipping handoff times and have increased it to allow at least 24 hours (48 hours on bulkier items) so I'm not constantly chasing down carriers like I used to. If eB says ship by 2 days from now, and the carrier already passed today, I will usually print the label and throw it into the bin - for the next postal business day. Unless a customer emails begging for it to go out right now - that's my norm. Perfect shipping scores (according to eB). // My post office closes at 4:30 however they're back there until around 7 so I pull close to the back rollup door where there is usually someone there willing to take the packages inside. We are about 20 miles from the main area post office where their last pickup is 8:30pm (8:43 lol) however even then as others have mentioned they're usually around the back where I've successfully gotten packages out as late as 10:15pm. Concerning FedEx, when we miss the ground 6pm cutoff, we just go to their large terminal and as long as we're at one of the bays by 8:45ish it will go out. I haven't tried much later than that. UPS is also similar to FedEx in our area time wise but all 3 are in different quadrants of our area and easily 20+ minutes from each other. Good luck!

[kirkland]

If you do decide to make post office runs instead of doing USPS pickup (and there are reasons for this), then you can also just - depending on where you live and the setup of your post office - just drop em off in the back in the loading station. No lines to wait etc. If you live in a city it might not work, but if you live in the suburbs its easy

[Rhonda]

Get a trolley... do you sell electronics or furniture?