usps reliability and efficiency is still 80:20 (80% gets delivered on time to correct address, 20% will not). that new guy de joy was supposed to increase postal efficiency and cut their annual deficit...but all he's done is raise rates, and officially slowed down the speed of delivery. now they say it takes 2 days to ship to seattle (1.5hr drive from me) so the GA (ground advantage) package is left lying around until day 2 before it gets delivered (it had always been 'next day' delivery). recently the usps said it could take 19 days to ship to hawaii from location 1.5hrs N of seattle - but they did it in a break neck speed of 14 days (yahoo!). it used to take no more than 3- 5 days 1st class package in the old days :) shipping to TX by GA (ground advantage) always takes 5 - 6 days, but GA (ground advantage) to VA most of the time takes 2 - 3 days... usps logic defies logic :)

i don't ship thousands of packages, so i can always see how 20% of my packages seem to go on a 'tour of the usa' before being delivered (and increasing potential for amazon customers to claim A-Z). the recent a-z claim was because package went WA - TN - TX - TN - CA - WA - OR (the correct destination) over a 17 day period!!! i now see that priority mail packages often take as long (or longer) than GA packages (shipped same day to same city), so even tho the label says P, they seem to just dump them in with GA packages (and naturally pocket the difference in cost of P vs GA). I now affix a PRIORITY label to the P packages (these labels are still free from usps website) and that seems to help usps sort them appropriately. i never had to do that in years gone by where it was just 1st class package or priority package.

unfortunately, for small orders, usps is still the best price around, and sometimes their P pricing is a little less than ups/fedex (and boasts a faster delivery time - officially). we just have to adjust selling prices to accommodate the increase costs of shipping, and pray for the promised 'efficiency' at the usps. no shipping company is perfect - but usps seems to be the least perfect of them all.