Amazon Forces Use of "Amazon Shipping Ground", but then churns out a USPS Ground Advantage Label

[packetfire]

Amazon lost some stock again, so I am forced to supplement their FBA efforts with my own FBM efforts.

For no good reason, one shipment had only one choice of carrier - “Amazon Shipping Ground”, at a higher price than I’d pay for USPS Ground Advantage. But, when I
“bought shipping”, it created a USPS Ground Advantage Label, but with some additional fancy QR codes I have not seen on a USPS label before. (Addresses redacted below to protect the innocent)

So, I paid more for “postage” than I would have using USPS, but I got USPS anyway… not sure how to approach this with Amazon, as they have clearly ripped me off for a tiny amount of money, very strange.

[Dogtamer]

Hey, Andy - how’s that ever-hotter embrace of degenerative generative AI implementations workin’ out fer ya, pal?

[Lost_My_Marbles]

Amazon has a deal with USPS to deliver that “last mile” on this package. This is the same type of arrangement that USPS has had in the past with FedEx and UPS.

Note that Amazon is the USPS Partner and that USPS is waiting for the item to enter their system.

So Amazon will be handling the transportation but not the final delivery.

[Dreamscape-Studio]

@Lost_My_Marbles

So Amazon will be handling the transportation but not the final delivery.

So in this case, Amazon shipping company will pick up the package fr OP, transport it to the destination city and hand the package over to the local USPS to deliver to the address?

Can OP just take this package to their local post office to be shipped all the way by USPS?

[papy]

@Dreamscape-Studio

Can OP just take this package to their local post office to be shipped all the way by USPS?

I’m not certain that FBA shipments to Amazon can buy anything other than what’s offered on Seller Central.

If it was an FBM order to a customer-- then yes.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Dreamscape-Studio

So in this case, Amazon shipping company will pick up the package fr OP, transport it to the destination city and hand the package over to the local USPS to deliver to the address?

In a way … yes. But the hand off would be at a local distribution center which serves the destination city so may not be the actual destination city at hand off.

@Dreamscape-Studio

Can OP just take this package to their local post office to be shipped all the way by USPS?

Not with that label (technically but there is always that one USPS location that does things there own way) … OP would have to buy a USPS Ground Label to present the package to a local USPS location.

[packetfire]

Oh shoot - I took the package at issue to the Post Office, as it seemed to me to be a valid USPS postal label.

I think I may have screwed up here.

[packetfire]

Update: There is an additional “pick up fee”, no thank you! The pick up fee costs more than the “buy shipping postage”!!!

[VTR]

The system is designed for higher volume users where that 6$ would be distributed over several shipments.
Typical Amazon fashion they provide no actual information or step by step and make it impossible to have an informed decision process on anything.

[packetfire]

I sent out a replacement unit using 3rd-party shipping, as I cannot assume that the one I dropped at the post office is going to come back.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

We came across this shipment today and thought of this thread. This is another example of a company being a partner shipping service with USPS as the final last mile delivery. It is projected to be delivered in 8 days (which would land on a Friday) but will most likely be on the following Monday from our experience when Pitney Bowes is the “shipping partner”.

When we receive the package, it will have a label very similar to the one that was posted in your opening thread post.