USPS to Launch Loyalty Program for Shippers

by: COVID-19

What a joke!  Hard to earn loyalty from customers when your employees don't even want to show up for work!

by: pace306

I already use USPS for %98 of everything I ship - so a loyalty program would be very nice.

The "issues" I have are

must the postage be purchased RETAIL at either a USPS location or online?

If I use a 3rd party shipper who gives me discounts (even if its via eBay) can you still get that discount?

Do you get an "account number" or is it a per address cumulative amount?

Is it daily, monthly, yearly?

by: toolguy

@pace306

The answer to one of your questions was there!

"The Notice states that the Loyalty Program applies to Postal Service business customers using Click-N-Ship for Priority Mail Express and Priority Mail shipping at retail rates." <-----"retail"

by: Shanna

Who in the world is spending $20K on postage at retail pricing? Is there anyone? Why would they do that and no go to some shipping company that offers commercial pricing for free or a small monthly fee? This is just stupid.

by: RL15

stupid idea.

by: iheartjacksparrow

"Gold (at least $20,000 spent): Qualify for Commercial Base pricing."

Are they joking? For $9.95 a month (which I can write off my Schedule C), I get Commercial Base Pricing. It would be easier for the USPS to start their own service like Stamps.com.

by: ShortSeller

Who pays for access to commercial pricing or pays retail anyways when there are providers that offer access for free?

by: RKTOYS

Why can't they just go back to letting us have commercial base rate?  Are they making work for H1Bs to muddle through on this loyalty program?

"We're unclear what types of businesses would use Click-N-Ship to purchase postage online at retail rates when they could use a third-party postage provider to access Commercial Base pricing."

Mine does.  Most third party postage providers charge subscription fees, so they are a poor fit with unsteady traffic from eBay.  I found one that didn't (PirateShip) but they had some frankly dumb/lazy problems like lack of notifications and strange looking labels.  As I said, traffic is unsteady to the point that 80% of my sales are offline now, so I was willing to sacrifice the small savings to keep my established workflow intact.

by: UB

Use Paypal for shipping and get the commercial based rates with no charges!!!!!

by: Vigilant Eye On eBay

Completely free to use with discounted commercial and cubic dimension pricing, I have been using PirateShip for years and have never looked back.

As I use a PayPal debit card to pay for PirateShip purchases, the monthly cashback reward that is earned, further discounts the postage cost.

by: angryllama

This certainly does look like the old "...Solution in Search of a Problem..."  Likely some harebrained scheme promoted by this new-guy from Mars who was teleported INTO his Postmaster General position.  Out of Touch seems to be the Most Gentle of All Possible explanations for deciding to Reinvent the Wheel... without actually Viewing and Touching the CURRENT "wheel".

by: Lightning

PirateShip works super for me.  Never had a problem.  And they don't mess with the interface like eBay does, changing the location of tools you need.  Or just changing it for the sake of change.  In those rare cases that you need insurance, it's only 80 cents per $100.  I haven't seen it lower anywhere else.

@Jack  With a name like iheartjacksparrow, I can't believe you are not on PirateShip.  Better than deducting the $9.95 monthly is not to have to pay it at all.

PayPal shipping is good, but doesn't have Regional pricing, if that is useful to you.  Also insurance is high, regular USPS rates.

Maybe the USPS should have done one of those 30 minute surveys that eBay is doing now.  Then they would have seen that the program they are rolling out fits NO ONE.  Nice job.

by: Moonwishes

To even see how silly this proposal is, we would need to know what time frame is for spending that $10,000 and $20,000. Is that cumulative over the years, or yearly and everyone resets at zero every 12 months? Then that $10,000 amount is going to be harder to come by just to get another $10/per $500 spent credit. How much will that commercial rate save them when they could have been getting all their postage with that rate all along. The only ones that would profit from this, it seems to me, are guys working for someone who is technically shy and they never realized that they were way overspending on postage until a bright young worker brings them these new rates and gets a promotion instead of a kick out the door for not having used the discount postage that had available for years and would have saved the company thousands of $$$$ over the long haul. Or are only small 3P online sellers that look for the discounts?

by: Tiffee Jasso

Click and ship is quite a bit higher. If I have to go that way, I will just go get in line and purchase my labels like I used to. That way, I make sure everything is in the system.

by: Marty2020

BTW if you mail international, pirateship rates for <4 lbs packages are 25-30% less than any other provider (you need to email them, or chat, to sign you up for Simple International Rates)

by: cvsharkey

hmmmm....might rethink Pirateship. And the use of a PayPal debit card for cashback is also interesting. I'm all about cash back. I usually purchase directly through PayPal, as I invoice through PP. But as mentioned--no Regional shipping. I'd like to check out the rates to Canada--my customers up there pay an arm & a leg for shipping.

As far as the USPS proposed program? With solutions like that, it's easy to see why they're always losing money.

by: Whatever

It's trump's plan
you need to know nothing more

by: Sierra

I get good (commercial?) rates on Etsy and PayPal/shipnow. I get cubic pricing on PirateShip. I'm good with that!