Beginning March 1, VaporWarehouse will have more shipping options available to customers during the checkout process. The additional shipping options are our response to the United States Postal Service delaying many First Class Mail shipments.
During the first week in December of last year, VaporWarehouse noticed an extreme delay happening with most of our First Class mailings. In some cases large numbers of orders were not even being scanned into the system for several days after being picked up. While others that were scanned upon pickup did not see any movement from the hub for several days. This continued for most of December, particularly on Mondays when mail volume is at it's largest. We chalked it up to the holidays, despite past years running much smoother.
On January 1, 2015, USPS implemented changes to First Class Mail that resulted in delaying about half the shipments by one day and eliminating overnight service to most areas (meaning packages that shipped within the same city or neighboring cities would no longer be delivered next day).
Using the report system in our shipping program, I was able to compare delivery times from January 2014 to deliver times from January 2015. The average ship time in January 2014 was 3.4 days with the longest delivery time for a single package being 16 days. Jump ahead to January 2015 where the average ship time increased to 4.1 days and longest delivery time for a single package being 27 days.
We understand some of our customers frustrations with these delays. And they have cost us valuable time having to contact USPS and research the shipments. Because of this we are now offering our customers the option to select UPS or USPS.
A few things to keep in mind when selecting your shipping option. UPS Ground shipments to the East Coast take a full week to be delivered, whereas USPS First Class generally takes 3 or 4 days. Plus USPS treats Saturday like a normal business day, which means an order mailed to the East Coast on Thursday stands good chance of being delivered on Monday.
Selecting UPS over USPS is certainly no guarantee that your package will be delivered in a timely manner and not be lost in transit or mis-delivered. I've personally had UPS deliver a package to the wrong address and they made no attempt to recover the package after admitting they delivered it to the wrong address. Last year, a customer insisted that we mail her order Fed Ex. It only took them 15 days to deliver the package to Texas after being stuck in a black hole for several days in Oakland, CA.
Another big consideration is price, UPS isn't cheap and a 2 ounce package is treated like a 1 pound package (USPS First Class mail has different price tiers from 1 ounce to 13 ounces). Looking at a 3 ounce package in our system being shipped to Massachusetts, the USPS First Class Mail rate is $1.93 whereas the UPS Ground rate is $13.57. Quite a difference in price and certainly a real eye opener for those cheering on the demise of USPS.
Because of the price difference, the VaporWarehouse promotion for Free Shipping for orders over $25 will continued to be mailed using USPS First Class Mail. But you now have the freedom to select USPS or UPS when paying for shipping.