I recently sold a Superspeed to another member through the bst and estimated the shipping fee to be $3. Unfortunately when I went to the post office it turned out to be $11-$12 for parcel! I refunded the money as the shipping cost would have been too cost prohibitive. The reason as I learned was because the thickness exceeded 2cm. I've sent many straight razors in bubble envelopes for $3 in Canada and $5 Conus and $6-$7 International. Naturally I was curious to know why they couldn't just charge a small increment rather than charge for a parcel.
Well I have a friend that works at Canada Post and I asked him why rates are the way they are. In case anyone is curious to know why sending a $20 Gillette Superspeed is so much more expensive than a $200 straight razor (without tracking), it's because of the thickness. The machines they use have a maximum thickness tolerance of 2 cm. Anything thicker will jam or damage the machines and thus need to be manually sorted. For this reason it costs more. I believe the new machines can read and sort over 1000 pieces of mail per minute. Manual sorting is probably 20-25 per minute. Of course weight also is important. The thresholds I keep in mind are 100 grams, 500 grams and 1 kg. 1 gram over and you are paying the next incremental shipping fee.
Furthermore he also commented that the central processing center in the US is San Francisco. There used to be one in Seattle but they closed it down. Anything being shipped from or to Conus needs to be cleared through San Fran. For that reason shipping times from/to central and eastern US may take longer due to the clearing times for each zone. The good news is shipping to and from San Fran should be nice and fast.
Another thing I learned is that Canada Post and USPS have a billing system with each other. Each company bills the other based on the weight of the handled mail. There is a discrepancy in that Canada Post charges the US more than USPS charges Canada. Also, he feels that USPS is not charging enough for their postage and this is one reason they could be in the red now.
Well I have a friend that works at Canada Post and I asked him why rates are the way they are. In case anyone is curious to know why sending a $20 Gillette Superspeed is so much more expensive than a $200 straight razor (without tracking), it's because of the thickness. The machines they use have a maximum thickness tolerance of 2 cm. Anything thicker will jam or damage the machines and thus need to be manually sorted. For this reason it costs more. I believe the new machines can read and sort over 1000 pieces of mail per minute. Manual sorting is probably 20-25 per minute. Of course weight also is important. The thresholds I keep in mind are 100 grams, 500 grams and 1 kg. 1 gram over and you are paying the next incremental shipping fee.
Furthermore he also commented that the central processing center in the US is San Francisco. There used to be one in Seattle but they closed it down. Anything being shipped from or to Conus needs to be cleared through San Fran. For that reason shipping times from/to central and eastern US may take longer due to the clearing times for each zone. The good news is shipping to and from San Fran should be nice and fast.
Another thing I learned is that Canada Post and USPS have a billing system with each other. Each company bills the other based on the weight of the handled mail. There is a discrepancy in that Canada Post charges the US more than USPS charges Canada. Also, he feels that USPS is not charging enough for their postage and this is one reason they could be in the red now.
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