mail mailman postage shipping usps

Shipping Seeds To You With USPS

Jan 10, 2025by David Schulze

From time to time, we get complaints about the shipping fees required to ship seeds to our customers via USPS. The complaint usually goes like this, "These seeds will fit in a standard envelope. I do not understand why you don't use the envelope and pay 75 cents for the shipping. Seems like it would be a lot better and cheaper."

Maybe better and cheaper until you don't receive it and then want us to ship the order again at our cost.

We ship our products with tracking. This way you know when it was shipped and about how long it will take to get it. If you have followed the news lately, what used to take three days to deliver is now taking five to six days and the price went up over the holidays as a surcharge. These surcharges become permanent. And they will raise the rate again shortly.

With tracking, if you do not receive your package, you can go to the Post Office and ask the Post Master (they are, as far as we know, the only ones with access to the geotracking which states where and when the package was delivered.) Geotracking provides tracking information on where the package was delivered within six feet.

You can also sign up for "informed delivery" where a picture is taken of your mail and is sent to you so you can know when you will receive the mail. Also, if it is a letter from the IRS or county tax office, you can worry about it for a few days before actually getting it.

What is involved in shipping?

The price of the shipping as charged by the post office.
The envelope, label and ink to print the address on a label and then attach the label to the envelope:

Electricity to run the printer, cost of the printer, space to put the printer
Space to store the envelopes and labels
Place for the person attaching label to sit plus the chair
Electricity to keep the person comfortable
Electricity for the lights
Property tax for all of this

The person who is attaching the label to the envelope, double checking the order, stuffing the order and sealing the envelope:

There is pay for this person plus Medicare and social security tax (7%)
We start this person at $18 an hour
There is a break room and restroom which require water, space, soap, paper towels, toilet paper and electricity
Plus, the break room needs a refrigerator, microwave, table, chairs, sink and lights
Property tax for all of this
A safe and secure place for them to park their car —more upkeep and property taxes

There is upkeep, cleaning, insurance fees, cleaning supplies for the packing facility, break room and restroom:

AC and heat require maintenance
Lord forbid if they break down since it costs an arm and two legs to fix
Plus we have to pay someone to clean everything — we boast that we have the cleanest restrooms in Texas
Every once in a while, we have to put on a fresh coat of paint

At least the Postal person stops and picks up the mail but they use our facilities — water, TP, paper towels and electricity

If we were to use UPS, we would have to make a 50 mile round trip to get to the nearest UPS facility and that takes a few hours out of our day that we cannot afford to give up, especially during the busiest time of year which is New Year's through May.

Then, you also have to add in the price of gasoline, which is not cheap and the cost of maintaining the vehicle.

UPS is 2 to 3 times the price of the postal system.

Fed-X is over an hour away. And it cost more that USPS and UPS.

I hope this clears up some of the questions and complaints about shipping fees. USPS is still the cheapest way to ship.