Monday, April 13, 2009

Run-ins with snail mail

So, I was on Twitter tonight and up came a post by needlings, a fellow awesome Canadian Etsian complaining about, you guessed it, Canada Post. Prior to being a crafter/selling online, I had at most sent 2 pieces of snail mail in all my life. I mean... paper? Pen? Write? With a hand? I'm a part of the online generation (whether that's unfortunate or fortunate). Anyway, a bit over a year of selling online and by now I've had a lot of experience with shipping. Trust me, when we Canadians complain about Canada Post we are not exaggerating. It's the ridiculously expensive price (compared to other countries), inconsistent service, and did I mention ridiculously expensive price?

I think this sums it up quite nicely:




That led to a conversation about trying to shove our packages into those tiny 2 cm slots in order to save on shipping costs. Anyway, that also led me to remember the time I sent three pinback buttons to a buyer in the States and THIS HAPPENED:
THAT IS MY ENVELOPE! With cuts and holes and yes, BURNS. Two of the three buttons had completely disappeared and the last little guy was bent up. Apparently the US postal service shoved it into another bag and slapped on a "sorry" note. First time something like that has happened and it's pretty insane. Godzilla ate my packet!

Last example - a few days ago I had an small envelope packet returned to me with a "Return to Sender" sticker with absolutely no explanation (despite there being checkboxes and a comments space). The person had scribbled I needed double the amount of postage that I had put, which was completely wrong. 

More than ever I wish I had teleportation powers.
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2 comments:

  1. sockstarApril 13, 2009 at 10:11 PM

    ugh. I shipped to Canada ONCE. and nothing against it, but it cost me $23 from Washington state!!! and they also said it would take about 23 days to get there. final destination? a 4 hour drive to the border and I could have hand-delivered it. grr. I also lost money on this sale, because the previous estimated prices was far from what I ended up paying. I changed my "shop policies" after said experience. on a lighter note, I would have been FURIOUS if my package looked like that. :( I hope the buyer was understanding!!!

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  2. zombApril 13, 2009 at 10:18 PM

    Ouch!!!
    That's another thing - estimated prices are, for some reason, often wrong so we as sellers eat a lot of the cost ourselves. Very unfortunate. Plus, lots of people I talk to have NO IDEA how much snail mail costs and therefore are easily put off by "high" shipping prices.

    The buyer was very understanding, thank goodness! Didn't even ask for new buttons - of course I did ship them new ones! :)

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