That’s not exactly true, and very unfair to the PO. I don’t like the government doing anything, but if they have to, this is the model to use. The tax payers have not put in a dime in the PO for decades. It is not subsidized at all. Now the feds have raped them many times. Like under Clinton they took all the PO pension money. The post office has been losing money for years, to pay for it they must borrow money, their is no subsidy, not one dime.
Well they do get breaks from the government. They borrow at a low rate and certain laws favor them over other services, so indirectly they are subsidized, but I worked there when the other feds stole the pension money. It’s a long story, the money was reallocated and the PO could no longer claim it as an asset. And now they cannot afford pension costs, much like SS was handled, is handled. When I worked there I had the option to opt for SS instead, and I did. Tomorrow I will be old enough to collect. Wow that’s ironic!
It seems to me that a large shipper of seeds could develop an envelope that could stand up to automatically sorted mail that would save them money and the customer. It would take time as seeds very so much in size but I bet it could be done.
On the other hand, I bought this 45x magnifier , from China for $2.00 , on eBay
It is actually quite functional.
Optics ok, light with a battery. It’s tiny but it works
Shipping was free …!
I don’t understand.
Just the battery for the light would cost $2.00 here.
I think of how far away China is,…how many times this little package changed hands .and it made it to me unharmed , did not get lost.
And they had to make it. All for $2.00
How can this be ? And surely someone is making $ doing this.
I am not bragging about this item, just the long journey it took .
I would think it would cost me $2.00 to mail it across town.
I do think some shipping costs are to high, and often stops me from ordering things
I sell a few smaller things here and there. It does cost that much just for a small item. Plus the cost of the envelope. I have to use padded envelopes so those are about $1.50+ to just buy them.
When you get that envelope take envelope back to the post office. Have them look at the package and then have them put in a zip code on either coast 04401 and 95678. See what the shipping is to either one of those places. It will surprise you. There are all sort of weird rules the post office has about shipping. You cannot ship it first class because it is this or that, cannot be shipped letter because it cannot fit through a certain size slot they have a cut out for at the desk, etc…
This shipping thing is out of hand and is going to ruin online tree purchases. Yesterday I ordered 7 trees from Raintree. The total was $197 (which is bad enough, to be honest). Then he tells me shipping cost on 7 BARE ROOT TREES is $68 !!! That just seems insane to me. Are the rest of you facing similar costs at other nurseries? I ordered 13 trees from Vaughns a few weeks ago and shipping was less than half this price. Perhaps the raintree trees will be substantially larger but I’d rather have smaller trees or more wood pruned off the top than pay $10 per tree on a 7 tree order!
Yes burntridge called me yesterday about some replacement bushes they are sending out and like your experience shipping has got so expensive its not covered. Its going to end a nice business for many tree sellers. Soon trees may come from amazon because they do it better on shipping than anyone else. Have no idea how they do it. The nurseries may start selling through someone else. Soon the tree will be $10 and the shipping $15 the way its going. Volume is definately the way to go because last time i ordered 100 bushes it was cheaper than a small order ( about $15 for 100 bushes)
I just got an order of rootstock and scion that I know for a fact would have fit in a flat-rate Priority box. I paid well over 20 bucks instead for shipping.
I occasionally sell on e-bay and note that if the orders fit into those boxes/envelopes and would cut shipping costs, I’ll do that instead.
On the 12th I placed an order for vegetable seeds from Burpee, where they charge a flat $2.99 to ship all seeds. It’s the 21st, and still no seeds. I’d kind of rather have paid more to get them in a timely manner
It most certainly is. I just received 10 small rootstocks from them (Raintree). Shipping was $21. That’s like 6 additional rootstocks. There must be a cheaper way to ship things like this.
I want to place an order with Bob Wells Nursery - but they want $79 to ship 4 peach trees. They will get my money but not this year. $79 is crazy. Plus Bob Well is high at $34 a tree. I got 20 trees from CVN and the shipping was like $40 to $50. And the CVN trees were nice trees. Van well is still my favorite place to order - nice big trees with good root systems. CVN cannot be beat for value.
You’ll get them by Memorial Day I ordered seeds thru Territorial seed --shipping wasn’t cheap on like 3 packs of seeds, but they were artichokes and some purple cauliflower and a bush watermelon that looked interesting that i couldn’t find many places, so i went ahead…they came really quick. They are growing nicely too.
I didn’t order any trees. With the prices/shipping and the fact everything i grow either sucks, doesn’t fruit, the squirrels steal everything/birds peck or they just die over winter…i’m back to just growing out seeds and maybe i can see if some want to swap budwood…
I thought Raintree use to fill up a semi truck and haul it to the midwest (chicago?) and then deliver out from there to save costs? I got fed up with Raintree because i was getting my trees so late in the spring. I mean the one y ear it was like summer and my trees came… ok…it was maybe a spring heatwave, but i like early April for delivery here…seems to work fine most years.
I ordered seeds thru Territorial seed --shipping wasn’t cheap on like 3 packs of seeds, but they were artichokes and some purple cauliflower and a bush watermelon that looked interesting that i couldn’t find many places, so i went ahead…they came really quick. They are growing nicely too.