[lbo-talk] the free market at work

Fernando Cassia fcassia at gmail.com
Fri Sep 30 11:04:15 PDT 2011


On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:24, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As far
> as USPS parcel rates are concerned, they are on a par what UPS or
> Fedex charge.

Not really. UPS is much more expensive for international shipments. I live down in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and every piece of used (or new) tech kit I bought on eBay from USA sellers came by US Postal Service "EMS" (Express Mail Service).

EMS is one of the good things that came out of Postal Services cooperation.

See: http://www.ems.coop/

A USPS EMS package can end up costing a fraction of what private UPS costs, and FedEx is an even bigger rip-off. USPS EMS comes with end-to-end tracking just like private couriers (USPS takes care of the tracking within the USA and the receiving country's postal service takes care of tracking on the 2nd leg of the trip) and arrives in 5 days or less (sometimes 3).

During the George W. Bush term, US Postal Service added a new option "Global Expres Guaranteed" with a similar name to EMS, higher cost, but in this scheme the USPS only acts as receiving agents for FEDEX! (!).

https://www.usps.com/ship/gxg.htm

There is a problem with USPS GEG (rebranded FedEx service): for local tax purposes courier shipments are considered commercial imports, whereas EMS packages enter under mail parcel rules.

So what USPS did graciously under the Bush admin is hand over a lot of lucrative business to FedEx. The end user be damned. US sellers think they are doing buyers a favor by shipping GEG and the buyer gets a lot of headaches and higher cost by receiving a FedEx shipment under courier rules

FC



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