"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Phil Hobbs wrote:
The Americans do seem generally to be used to sending a lot by courier
when we would just put in the post. Tending to happen in the UK also
even though the Royal Mail / Parcelforce often give a better service
and of course do not charge extra to send further. There has been a
big campaign in the North of Scotland about companies charging extra
for many postcode areas.

That's mostly a business etiquette thing, I think. Sending somebody a
bunch of business documents in the snail mail sort of says that their
input isn't that urgent. Letter mail here is also very secure IME.

Fine if 'they' want to do this and pay for it. My complaint is buying
goods from the US where I'm paying the P&P and not having the choice of a
reasonably priced service. Why would I want to pay in some cases more than
the value of the goods for postage, if I'm in no rush to receive them?


Have you ever tried to mail a thousand+ packages a week? A local non
profit group had a post office refuse their business, because of the
volume. they had to get a politician involved, since USPS is the only
way they are allowed to ship the gifts to our troops. Over $100,000 a
year in postal fees, and were told to go away. By law, they can't ship
a box full of stuff to a base. Each package requires a separate customs
form to be filled out by hand.


UPS and other shippers park an empty semi trailer at the dock of
large customers, and haul it directly to the hub. That entire process
can be automated.