USPS weight

Ah, rookie error...I've never taken USPS shops becuase of the low fees, but I actually had something I had to mail, and I stupidly assumed it was a pound. Instead it was 14 ounces. (I misread the screen, otherwise I would have simply taken it back and added a small item to the package.) Will the shop be rejected unless I reshop and send a package that is over 1 lb? (Thankfully the location is right down the road.)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2021 07:16PM by NinS.

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Yes, it probably will be rejected. If you still have time in your shopping window, I would redo the shop. I always make sure I have around 20 ounces, that way I know it will be accepted.

Thanks. I have two days left so I will indeed reshop. My first shopping error in eons, but better with an eight dollar package I was sending anyway than with a $150 meal or $300 hotel!

Yes. My package was light by 1/10 of an ounce,and the report was immediately rejected.

Wow, thanks for the cautionary tale Ceasesmith!

@ceasesmith wrote:

Yes. My package was light by 1/10 of an ounce,and the report was immediately rejected.

Ouch!!!!

Thats why I always mail the same package contents over and over. Be it a pound of pasta or a stack of cds. It is that sweet spot where its over required weight but not enough extra to incur additional charge in postage.

Shopping Western NY, Northeast and Central PA, and parts of Ohio and West Virginia. Have car will travel anywhere if the monies right.

I also mail the same 1 lb bag of beans or pasta over and over again. Once, I used the exact, sealed box I had used several times before with no problems, and then found the receipt said it was only 12 ounces or somesuch. Fortunately, I was able to explain in the comments and they approved the shop. I'm not sure a newer shopper would have been so lucky.

If I have good reason to think its a pound I always add something with a stated weight--like a 6 ounce pack of cookies--that I know will not exceed the limits. But recently I've been sending friends Girl Scout cookies, which have a stated weight on the box, and to shelters I send unopened cat food (that my spoiled cats refuse to eat), which also have the weight stated on the cans.

I got a second hand kitchen scale, Kitchenaid. It gets it right to the fraction of an ounce.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230

Apparently, it depends on the editor and their mood that day. I had two shops one day and it wasn't;t raining at the time, but had been for several days before. I didn't realize there was a puddle of water in the back of my pick-up where I placed the packages, and water sloshed all over them during the drive. Too far from home to go back, I stopped at Office Depot and purchased a couple of boxes and filled them basically junk from my truck. As luck would have it, both packages were shy of a pound. I contacted my scheduler as soon as I noticed and told her what happened, but she said it was "strict USPS policy" that they had to weigh at least a pound, and there was nothing she could do. However, one editor rejected one of the packages, another let the second go through. So much for "strict policies."

I have a postage scale that I use. I try to get close to the 2# as I am sending items to my daughter and have lots to send. But I have left a 2 oz window on the upside of the one pound minimum and the low side of the 2# point. Due to their scale being off for whatever reason by an ounce or two I always leave this window just to be safe. You can add weight to your one pound box easily if you find mailing boxes that are thick and heavy. Some of the boxes I use weigh 4 or 5 ounces themselves. .

I weigh my boxes on my kitchen scale, aiming for about 1.5 pounds. Yesterday the clerk told me a box was over two pounds, causing me to pay 50 cents over what it usually costs to mail to this location. I didn't challenge her on it mainly because I figured an average customer wouldn't have taken the time to know a package weight down to the ounce.

But later I started thinking...if a post office fudged their scale such that customers paid a little too much each time a package went out that would be a tidy sum. If so, would it benefit the individual clerk or the office itself?

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2021 04:01PM by SoCalMama.

It happened to me only once but increased the mailing price by a lot more than 50c. I still mailed the box but had to use my fee to pay the difference.

I had a shop where the weight on the receipt was incorrect. The editor contacted me and asked what I had shipped. I remembered and told her to the ounce what it was. It was accepted.

If your package is over or under you can always take your package back go your car remove or add items. Oh, Nobody else has a USPO shop kit in their trunk. Hahahaha I do so many my trunk is stocked, scale and all.

A Dad shopping the Ark-LA-Tex and beyond.

OK, this is not exactly on the topic of weight but in my market I have noticed many fewer jobs. And this month, the last month of the quarter usually has a long list to finish up the quarter but this month, so far, no new jobs. I know the admin of the USPS is slashing costs and raising prices. Perhaps they are slashing us out of the budget. Anyone have a new list for September?

I have two nicely bonused USPS shops to do next week!

@guysmom wrote:

I have two nicely bonused USPS shops to do next week!

Seems like those are probably leftovers from last month if they are already bonused on Sept 3.

@sandyf wrote:

@guysmom wrote:

I have two nicely bonused USPS shops to do next week!

Seems like those are probably leftovers from last month if they are already bonused on Sept 3.

Yes, I believe you are correct. Sept is the end not only of the quarter, but for the USPS, the end of their fiscal year. There are also some unbonused locations in my area, and if these don't get done soon, they'll probably be bonused as well.

now they have limitation of the box size but I remember times when it was not. I shipped once a heater to my daughter that was in huge box and weigh as well too big..

Shopping Eastern Pennsylvania since 2009

There are about 10 unbonused shops in my area right now and they are all the same ones from last month. I hope they release some new ones soon as they are close enough for me to do for the fee. I also read that the usps is putting a surcharge on priority mail for the holiday season which begins sometime in October so our costs will go up. And then amidst this cost cutting at the usps I heard today they are hiring tens of thousands. May be a smart move as my big post office only has one clerk usually for 6 windows and the mailpeople around here are doing double shifts plus delivery is not every day anymore but overtime is costing the po lots of extra money.

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