Should I open a shipper's account with FedEx, UPS, or USPS?

[fuzzybabybunny]

Anyone have experience with this? I want to have the ability to just issue a shipping label to someone, they paste it onto a package, they drop it off at a location and schedules pickup, and the shipper just measures it and charges me whatever for it. Which is the cheapest or easiest to go with?

EDIT: Oh, unfortunately this will be used pretty infrequently. There is no way we would get bulk discounts. With no bulk discounts, which would be cheaper?

 

[Jimzz]

FedEx and UPS can do that.

I use my company's account, pay with my CC, to ship my packages. Sent something 2 day air mail by UPS. Rated cost was $33, discount down to $6, and actually charge was $4.25ish.

I also make a shipping label and e-mail it to others. Just make sure to change the sent from address.

 

[Slew Foot]

getting a corporate discount with ups is tough. fedex was easier for me so i use them.

 

[rudeguy]

FedEx and UPS can do that.

I use my company's account, pay with my CC, to ship my packages. Sent something 2 day air mail by UPS. Rated cost was $33, discount down to $6, and actually charge was $4.25ish.

I also make a shipping label and e-mail it to others. Just make sure to change the sent from address.

We use Fedex here at work and its great. We print and email return labels all the time and its easy as pie.

Discounts are going to depend on volume and we get around the same rate you listed. A bit more for call tags since Fedex has to make a special trip for those. Shipping out from here is stupid cheap though.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Ah, crap. OP edited.

 

[Slew Foot]

fedex gives you discounts pretty easily. i ship about $50/week and its about 30% less than ups. Usps flat rate is also pretty good for dense products that need to be expedited.

 

[Fayd]

i have an account at fedex. i set it up accidentally. it's been very useful.

 

[Leros]

Want kind of stuff are you shipping? Large stuff or small stuff?

 

[esquared]

I've had a Fedex account for years. Just to ship my eBay stuff.

Discount from having your own account is probably 15-20%.

Possibly more if you use the overmight shipping.

I only used it for ground shipping myself.

 

[NutBucket]

I choose fedex because there is a distribution center about 2 miles from my parents' house. Ground shipping seems cheaper than UPS but I don't ship enough for it to matter. Its purely a matter of convenience.

 

[RossMAN]

Another vote for FedEx and I recently discovered their FREE hold at location service.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Another vote for FedEx and I recently discovered their FREE hold at location service.

Ah that's awesome. OK, FedEx it is.

 

[Jimzz]

We use Fedex here at work and its great. We print and email return labels all the time and its easy as pie.

Discounts are going to depend on volume and we get around the same rate you listed. A bit more for call tags since Fedex has to make a special trip for those. Shipping out from here is stupid cheap though.

Yea we had fedex but UPS undercut them so we switched.

I think FedEx offers a better discount for low count shipping but have not done a real good look at both since I can use my works account.

 

[mikeford]

USPS is free, guessing most of the others are as well, try it and see how it works for you, no penalty to stop using it.

 

[MrSquished]

i have been ordering a shit ton of stuff online for the last 3 years. as far as performance goes, UPS beats FedEX hands down.

 

[blinblue]

For Priority Mail you can print postage right from USPS.com, for all others (Media Mail, First Class, etc) you can print from Paypal here

 

[Thump553]

I use both FedEx and UPS extensively but 99% of my shipments are prepaid by my clients. One thing that really annoys me about UPS is that you need an account to order supplies (which I have to do frequently) and my UPS account is constantly being inactivated because I don't originate shipments with it. Every time it takes them a long phonecall and a couple of days to reactivate the account.

I use FedEx for the shipments I pay for because I get a discount because of an organization I belong to.

Never had to pay to open either account or to get supplies.

 

[rudeguy]

I use both FedEx and UPS extensively but 99% of my shipments are prepaid by my clients. One thing that really annoys me about UPS is that you need an account to order supplies (which I have to do frequently) and my UPS account is constantly being inactivated because I don't originate shipments with it. Every time it takes them a long phonecall and a couple of days to reactivate the account.

I use FedEx for the shipments I pay for because I get a discount because of an organization I belong to.

Never had to pay to open either account or to get supplies.

What kind of supplies?