OT: APO/FPO Mailing

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

> At 08:04 AM 6/8/2004, you wrote:

>

>>Priority mail seems to take a bit longer to get to me here than it did

>>in the states, right around a week. My lazy self hasn't mailed

>>anything home yet, so i can't attest to that.

 

My point was .. and I confirmed this with the Air Force personnel who

run the Army Post Office here .. is that Priority Mail is not handled as

Priority Mail when it leaves the USA heading to an APO or FPO. It is

handled as expeditiously as possible .. based on priorities at the time.

 

>>My biggest issue is that many many many (too many) companies won't

>>ship to APO addys. And UPS won't ship here. I _think_ I can get fed

>>ex at the fed ex station, but will have to look into. But I can't

>>just have fed ex show up at my doorstep.

 

Costs a bunch to send via UPS or FedEx .. when sending to an APO or FPO

the sender is paying postage to New York or San Francisco .. Uncle Sugar

is picking up the slack.

 

> we do a lot of APO orders.... and about half of them are returned to us

> before they leave the states.

 

Lucky I am .. NEVER had one returned.

 

> Often the envelope that contains the customs forms is empty...and we are

> told we didn't include them.

>

> We did...they were removed and lost.

>

> or... our mail is postage metered..

 

> so it will be returned with a statement that it must be given to a US

> Postal Service Employee.

>

> It was.

>

> but the government employee at the place the pkg would exit the States

> doesn't believe that.

>

> So we take the time to fill out a new set of Customs forms (which takes

> much longer since they now require the country of origin of each item...we

> can't put " Essential Oils - 10 Oz " any more...we have to list them

> all... and you tell ME the country of origin of the bottles that we

> sell...or the diffusers...etc...)

 

We list Common/Botanical names of the oils, sizes and prices anyway on

the Invoice .. but certainly not country of origin of anything.

 

These requirements are likely being demanded by your local yokel postal

folks because they want to .. that's not saying there might not be a

requirement in some obscure regulation .. but the folks at our Post

Office don't require us to observe such a regulation .. if there is one.

 

> and give it back to the postman.

>

> We always email our APO customers that it will get there when it gets

> there... all bets are off as to delivery time.

 

Having spent 30 years in uniform and 10 plus otherwise serving US Gummit

folks while wearing civilian clothes .. I learned that what goes down is

often based on who we are dealing with .. and sometimes how they feel at

the time we are dealing with them. The smaller the dawg the more noise

they make .. generally. ;-)

 

But we might get special handling at the Friendsville, MD Post Office ..

for sure we give them more business than the entire town of 597 folks.

 

> Your source for superb Essential Oils, Aromatherapy

> Accessories, Information, Books and more!

> Visit us at: <http://www.naturesgift.com>

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com