USPS shippers, how did Ground Advantage perform this week?

Selling on Amazon FBM
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@Medic mentioned this in another thread -

I just got off the phone with a Postal Supervisor who has been trying to help me locate a lost package, and he said that selecting Ground Advantage may still take longer than First Class, apparently, the switchover has been causing major delays so just an FYI.

For those who have shipped USPS this week, how did they do? Faster, slower, or the same as before? :thinking:

When sharing, please let us know the region you’re shipping from, so we can see if particular areas are struggling more than others.

From Portland OR, my PirateShip packages (which has incorporated Ground Advantage):

  • Everything shipped Monday has been delivered

  • Nothing shipped Tuesday has arrived yet, and just for laughs, that includes this one going to AZ. Arizona. It’s currently in Pennsylvania. :woman_facepalming:

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  • 3 of 8 shipped Wednesday have already been delivered. That includes shipments to Indiana and Mississippi that were both delivered in 2 days.

From Amazon, where labels were first class, this is data from Monday’s shipping -

  • 2-day delivery (arrived Wed) to: Seattle WA, FL, PA, CA, and ID
  • 3-day delivery to: CO, CA
  • 4-day delivery to: KY, FL, MI, MD, SC, GA, TX, WI
  • 5-day delivery to: TX, NY, PA, IN

So I seem to have a decent chance of my GA packages traveling east by plane, which is the same as it was before GA, and 4-day delivery seems to be the most common transport time for destinations outside the west coast.

At first glance, it seems that Tuesday’s shipments may be moving slower, as usually anything I ship on Tuesday by first-class would arrive by Saturday and I still have several undelivered packages that aren’t due until Monday. That’s different than before. I’ll have to keep an eye on it to see if it becomes a regular pattern.

Wednesday’s Amazon shipments aren’t doing much better. Only a couple to western destinations have been delivered.

Interesting observation - things shipped on both Tuesday and Wednesday show expected delivery next Monday. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Maybe I’ll start taking Tuesdays off, if shipping Wednesday is going to get it there just as fast.

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Using Amazon Buy shipping, there was no Ground Advantage yet for me. I am still using USPS first class package since 7/10.

From Salem OR.
Monday (7/10) shipping: to NY, delivered on 7/12,
to AR & DE, delivered on 7/14,
to ME, delivered on 7/15
to MN, took a detour to SC, just arrived at MN on 7/15, probably will deliver on
7/17 (last day of promised delivery by AZ)

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Coping my response over. :wink:

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From Texas to

SHIPPED ON STATE ZONE TYPE TRANSIT DELIVERED # DAYS
2023-07-10 TX Z 3 FCP T 2 07 12 2
2023-07-10 PA Z 6 PM T 3 07 12 2
2023-07-10 WA Z 7 PM T 3 07 12 2
2023-07-10 MN Z 5 PM T 3 07 14 4
2023-07-10 CA Z 5 PM T 3 07 13 3
2023-07-10 OH Z 6 GA T 6 07 14 4
2023-07-10 OH Z 6 GA T 6 07 12 2
2023-07-10 OH Z 6 GA T 6 07 12 2
2023-07-10 OH Z 6 GA T 6 07 12 2
2023-07-11 NC Z 6 PM T 3 07 13 2
2023-07-11 NV Z 5 PM T 3 07 14 2
2023-07-12 CA Z 5 PM T 3 07 15 3
2023-07-12 CA Z 5 PM T 3 07 15 3
2023-07-12 CA Z 5 PM T 3 07 15 3
2023-07-12 CA Z 6 PM T 3 07 14 2
2023-07-12 HI Z 8 PM T 4 07 14 2

Note - the four packages shipped to OH using GA all went to same address. The three that made it there in 2 days were all GA Cubic pricing. The fourth package was 24 inches long, went as GA as it was over the 22 inch limit which caused a $4 surcharge and was in the local PO distribution center early on day 3 but didn’t go out until day 4 for delivery.

Note - the MN package was held up a day in MN due to weather during transit.

Areas that tend to be slower delivery for us are Southern CA, Georgia and rural areas even if they are zone 2, 3 or 4 and relatively close to us.

Interestingly, major cities in OR, WA, NY (New England states) and HI are normally delivered in 2 days from us even though they are zone 6, 7 and 8 from us. The service type (either FCP or PM) has not mattered with this group.

Where as @Roxy saw slow delivery with sending on Tuesday, we saw this with our orders going out on Wednesday July 11th. Strong thunderstorms in our area and/or the Dallas area often cause this to happen as the airline travel gets disrupted and, since USPS mail hitches rides on the airlines, this always adds a day on to the delivery time for us.

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Batteries? :woman_facepalming:

I’ve learned to take what they say with a grain of salt.

I think you should take this one with a lot of grains. On the rim of a margarita glass maybe, cause this guy might have had a few. :laughing:

He was very nice but not very helpful.

Yes, I’d say so. :laughing:

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Interesting. I look forward to seeing more of your numbers for first-class and ground advantage.

Priority Mail (most of your examples) wasn’t supposed to change with the July 9 update, was it? Still 2-3 days to most locations?

What does your Transit column represent? Is it the number of transit days Buy Shipping said delivery should take?

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Yes … but modified to take out the extra weekend day. Last example HI was said to be delivered on July 17th (Monday) when shipped on July 12th (Wednesday). 5 days minus weekend (Sunday) equals the T 4 (transit 4 days) shown above. FCP transits estimates were the same as PM except for zones 7 and 8 where they were a day long. And as we stated above, WA and HI (the zone 7 and zone 8 above) would have still been there in 2 days had we used FCP (from past history results).

Correct … but we are watching the estimated FCP and PS dates also. PS dates are the only ones showing an extra day most of the time on Amazon.

The GA packages to OH showed transit 6 days (out on July 10th for delivery July 17th) and was done through ShipStation (PayPal). Delivery beat that this time and the time before July 9th when PS was used (5 of 6 packages delivered in 2 days … 2 PS and 3 GA Cubic … 1 package in 4 days over length limit).

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As you well know, you put more faith in Amazon Buy Shipping than I do. I believe that other sites, such as Pirate Ship or ShipStation, display transit time data pulled directly from USPS estimates, but Amazon simply makes up their own, and can not be relied on.

As @Dreamscape-Studio and I have both reported, some of our packages that were supposed to go by ground transport, took an airplane trip instead. So maybe the name Ground Advantage means - supposed to travel by ground unless we decide to give you the free advantage of traveling by plane instead. :upside_down_face:

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So far my experience.

Shipped July 10th
From California to:

California - delivered July 11th and July 12th (multiple local orders)
Ohio - delivered July 12th
Washington State - July 13th
Texas - delivered July 13th
Georgia - delivered July 14th
Nebraska - delivered July 14th
Miami - delivered July 14th
NC - delivered July 14th
SC - delivered July 15th
Michigan - delivered July 14th and July 15th
Massachusetts - delivered July 15th
Mississippi - delivered July 15th
Pennsylvania - delivered July 15th
New Jersey - delivered July 15th
New York - delivered July 15th

All orders going to Maine and Connecticut - Still in transit, expected delivery Monday, July 17th

Shipped out on July 11th - arriving Monday or Tuesday, most local orders have already been delivered.

Everything seems to be running smoothly, except for a few exceptions that have been rerouted.
(probably mixed in with the wrong region)

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We shipped 2 orders GA cubic dropped off late on Sunday (5:30pm AZ time) and they were delivered on Tuesday morning. One to KY, and one to NYC from Phoenix Arizona. That’s a transit time of only about one day. It actually seems faster than our normal FC service. So far I’m impressed.

We use Pirate Ship or Stamps.com for all our orders. Don’t do FBM on Amazon, but if we did, I still wouldn’t use Buy Shipping for a whole raft of reasons. We have never had any issues with Pirate Ship or Stamps since we started selling in 2015.

-Ana

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I’m in Texas, so central to the US.

Everything I shipped via Ground Advantage on Monday & Tuesday has been delivered (to states all over, from PA to WA).

Weds, Thurs & Friday are still in Transit, but I just checked a couple and they are on their way and most are in the destination state.

I’m quite happy with it!

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Did you able to get Ground Advantage from Amazon Buy Shipping?

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No - Only on Etsy. I hope Amazon integrates it soon, saved me a couple $ per order on average.

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USPS GA transit time for packages under 15.99oz remain the same as FCP at 2 to 5 days. You should not see any difference in delivery times.

USPS GA transit time for packages 1lb to 70lb should see a little better delivery times as they now fall under the 2 to 5 days time frame instead of being 2 to 8 days. Pricing is suppose to be 1.4% lower compared to these predecessor offerings, according to the Postal Service.

Screenshot 2023-07-16 at 09-33-07 Ground Advantage USPS
Screenshot 2023-07-16 at 09-33-07 Ground Advantage USPS1476×544 24.8 KB

Please Note: Besides establishing how GA is performing, another thing @Roxy is trying to establish is the whether or not Amazon Buy Shipping estimated delivery dates are accurate or not in comparison to what is provided by other sites like USPS, Pirate Ship, ShipStation, etc. and for the ability to set better more accurate shipping transit times in the shipping templates. In the recent past, we (Roxy and Marbles) have documented fluctuations (inconsistencies) in Amazon Buy Shipping estimated delivery dates. These inconsistencies can affect how one sets up their shipping template transit times. The goal here is to understand what Amazon Buying Shipping delivery estimate is doing so that better shipping transit times can be set which should enhance the customer buying experience (customer possibly gets a better estimated time and thus the listing having a higher ranking within available offers).

From what we have seen recently … when it comes to USPS estimates

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All my shipments are under the one pound limit.

Most have performed exactly as before, but there are more misroutes and other delays than is typical.

The misroutes do not seem to be tracked, but it is clear that they have had to backtrack.

Looks like the usual problems implementing any changes, perhaps IT perhaps humans not following revised procedures.

USPS is not know for its ability to adapt to changes from on high.

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From North Carolina…

Shipped To ZIP Delivered Type
7/10/2023 PA 17406 7/12/2023 FCPS
7/10/2023 OH 43623 7/13/2023 PM
7/10/2023 IA 52001 7/13/2023 Ground Advantage
7/11/2023 OH 44514 7/13/2023 PM Cubic
7/12/2023 GA 30028 7/14/2023 FCPS
7/12/2023 PR 00979 7/15/2023 PM Flat Rate Box
7/13/2023 FL 33401 7/15/2023 FCPS
7/13/2023 NC 27405 7/15/2023 FCPS
7/13/2023 FL 33467 Expected 7/17 Parcel Select
7/14/2023 PA 15210 Expected 7/17 FCPS
7/14/2023 CA 94901 Expected 7/17 PM Flat Rate Box
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Don’t know Amazon is still doing first class, but what would you expect from them?

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Just received a GA return back. Was an eBay order and they provided the GA label to the customer (yup, eBay’s got their act together). Shipped from Georgia to St. Louis and took 4 days.

Our GA shipments that went out generally were delivered within 2-4 business days, but really seems all over the place.

Texas seems to be an issue for us. Two orders shipped one day apart and has been 7/8 days since shipped GA. Both are out for delivery today.

Our shipments are all small, most under 4oz.

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Texas seems to be an issue for us. Two orders shipped one day apart and has been 7/8 days since shipped GA. Both are out for delivery today.

Where are you shipping from? Those two orders would have been shipped before the July 9 transition to Ground Advantage, right?

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My bad, one on the 11th, one on the 12th. No one ever said I was good at math! So… 5/6 days from St. Louis.