eBay

rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

I think I may have been rejoicing too soon that the recent overhaul of CP's website hadn't affected Paypal shipping labels.

Today I had to ship a fairly valuable item (ca. $250 Cdn) to the U.S. I wanted to send it Expedited, for the tracking and also for the insurance and delivery confirmation. The box I had was 28 x 11 x 11 cm, and fit the item perfectly.

I entered all the usual details on the Paypal label page, but when I hit "continue", got an error message saying that invalid dimensions had been entered. I couldn't proceed. I tried entering the dimensions in inches rather than cms, tried adding a centimeter to each dimension, still no go. I tried backing out completely and starting over -- still got stuck at that error message. I tried Tracked Packet, same result.

The info pop-up for Expedited showed minimum acceptable dimensions as 100mm x 70mm x 10mm (and if I haven't gone completely demented, I believe that means 10cm x 7cm x 1cm). So my box should have been OK.

Fortunately I hadn't sealed up the item in the box, and I happened to have an "official" Canada Post "size Small" mailing box on hand. I tried the dimensions of that box (28.6 x 22.9 x 6.4cm) and -- voilà! -- I managed to get through to the final screen.

However, I now noticed that my requested additional insurance wasn't showing up. I went back, edited again, entered the insurance amount, and again it didn't register when I got to the final screen. By this point, after nearly 45 minutes of mucking about, I simply purchased the label and sent the item in the larger box. Chances are I overpaid somewhat for the bigger dimensions. I gave up on CP and bought my insurance through a 3rd party.

When I dropped the parcel off at my local P.O. I also took along my empty smaller box and asked the clerk to verify whether it was acceptable for Expedited USA -- she said it definitely was. Does this mean the CP/Paypal labelling system is now only recognizing dimensions that match CP's own products? Yikes!

As an aside, our CP clerk, who is uncommonly helpful and usually well versed in CP details, told me that they (meaning the CP counter employees at that P.O.) hadn't been told about the major overhaul of the CP site. Her words: "They never tell us about these things, we find out from our customers". Oh boy.

In any case, I'm not sure who to report the Expedited dimension glitch to -- perhaps Raphael next Wednesday (if they're around)? If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know, although I really don't have a lot of time to spare on following up something like this at the moment. I use Expedited USA enough that this could really cause a problem.

femmefan1946 · ‎07-24-2015

Tom (toff3) seems to have a few email addresses at Canada Post for people he bugs about bugs.

Neither Canada Post nor the RCMP are on GEDS, which has been my go-to for complaining to government.

tobyshitzu · ‎07-24-2015

This one is just user error, the min to USA isnt the

same

expedited usa is

21 cm

14 cm

5 mm

So didn't meet the 14. Granted it would have been fine to use that box and print out the label with the 14 plugged in

rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

@toby**bleep**zu wrote:
This one is just user error, the min to USA isnt the same

expedited usa is
21 cm 14 cm
5 mm

I still don't understand why my dimensions wouldn't work with Tracked Packet either. CP's minimums for TP (USA) are stated as 14 x 9 x 1cm. And why the Expedited label wouldn't accept my insurance input. The label ended up printing out with $0. I had entered an additional $150 in the "purchase additional insurance" box (that is, when I finally changed up to the larger box and was able to get through the label printing steps).

So didn't meet the 14. Granted it would have been fine to use that box and print out the label with the 14 plugged in

But would doing this cause the parcel to be rejected somewhere in the handling process by CP (or USPS)?

In other words, what's the purpose for the minimums anyway? I would think that as long as something is bigger than the O/S letter mail dimensions, it should be able to go by any parcel service one chooses.

pierrelebel · ‎07-24-2015

Patience. Toff3 will soon show up and explain the logic used by Canada Post in this instance. He is the expert on the subject.

rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

@pierrelebel wrote:
Patience. Toff3 will soon show up and explain the logic used by Canada Post in this instance. He is the expert on the subject.

Yes, I don't know how he is always immediately there on the boards when the Canada Post subject comes up, but he does seem to know what's what at CP. I'll check back later, thanks all.

By the way, I'll have to check those "info pop-ups" next time I'm doing a Paypal label. Either I was looking at the wrong Expedited details (i.e. Canada instead of U.S.A.), or Paypal labels has the wrong information. Judging by the pop-up, my original box was OK.

mr.elmwood · ‎07-24-2015

Expedited labels are bigger than Small Packet labels. The 11 needs to be a 13.

That has always been that way..

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mr.elmwood · ‎07-24-2015

But would doing this cause the parcel to be rejected somewhere in the handling process by CP (or USPS)?

I make my parcels what ever size suits me as long as the label fits correctly and just plug in the dimensions they want. I have been doing that for a long time.

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rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Expedited labels are bigger than Small Packet labels. The 11 needs to be a 13.

That has always been that way..

LOL -- OK, this does make sense (I hadn't considered that the larger Expedited label size would be an issue, as long as it could be slightly wrapped around the box).

This is actually the first time I've ever used such a small box. My items almost all go either by bubble mailer or they are large articles that need to go in a medium to large size box. I just didn't want to put this particular rather fragile item inside a bubble mailer (and I wanted this one to go with tracking, delivery confirmation, and insurance).

The label issue still doesn't explain why my insurance request wasn't processed when I did use the larger box.

The odd thing is that when I tried a few minutes ago to enter the same dimensions into the (new, improved) CP website to get an Expedited USA rate, it accepted everything, no error message. I guess they're not quite up to speed.

mr.elmwood · ‎07-24-2015

They do not want wrap arounds, that is why they make the specs larger than the label. Otherwise, some folk would be wrapping it all the way around.

We can't have that.

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pjcdn2005 · ‎07-24-2015

When I check the pop up in paypal I see this:

Expedited ParcelTM - USA
- Minimum length – 210 mm
- Minimum width – 140 mm
- Minimum height – 5 mm
- Maximum – No dimension may exceed 2 m, length and girth must not exceed 2.74 m

You might have been looking at the information for domestic Expedited.

The insurance seemed to work fine for me too.

Did you enter $250 as the total value and then check "yes" that you wanted to purchase additional insurance?

If you leave that question at the default 'no' it will not add on the extra insurance.

I"m not sure what happened with tracked packet unless it was the same problem that you had with it the other day...at least I think it was you. You have to do the TP label first, if you try another service first then you will get an error message.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-24-2015

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Expedited labels are bigger than Small Packet labels. The 11 needs to be a 13.

That has always been that way..

It has nothing to do with the size of the label itself. As toby explained, U.S. expedited parcel dimensions have to be larger than Canadian expedited parcels and rose was looking at the minimum dimensions for the domestic service.

Up until a year or two ago the expedited, small packet and light packet labels were all the same size.

ricarmic · ‎07-24-2015

I had a box seriously mis-re-strangely-routed because the label was folded over the side of a very large box, don't know why the postmaster did it with that one (there were 8 others, these are all "bankers boxes" sized boxes that they just put on the top of the other 7).....because the bar code was half on one side and half on another it went a few places before it found the proper home....

rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
It has nothing to do with the size of the label itself. As toby explained, U.S. expedited parcel dimensions have to be larger than Canadian expedited parcels and rose was looking at the minimum dimensions for the domestic service.

I just can't help but wonder why that is -- something to do with machinery at USPS maybe? Not that it will make any difference now.

Yes, I looked at the first "info pop-up" I found, which didn't actually say "Expedited Canada", so I assumed it would logically pertain to the service I had chosen -- silly me, expecting logical consistency from CP.

I imagine the "Canada" part was probably in a heading further up that wasn't visible. Lesson learned.

Thanks to everyone for illuminating this ridiculous little conundrum, and to 'ricarmic' for the scare-story about wrapping labels (I'll be sure not to do that).

OK, now I need to know if I can use those little 27 x 11 x 11 cm boxes for Small Packet (and Tracked Packet). Dare I try out the new CP website for information???

jt-libra · ‎07-24-2015

@rose-dee wrote:

Today I had to ship a fairly valuable item (ca. $250 Cdn) to the U.S.

That's a nice sale .... particularly during the slow summer. Congrats!

rose-dee · ‎07-24-2015

@jt-libra wrote:
That's a nice sale .... particularly during the slow summer. Congrats!

Yes, thanks so much, it was great to have that sale, although it went for a lot less than it was worth (at Best Offer), and less than the value I insured it for.

Still, I'm really happy to have had it come along, since June was a disaster and July has been unbelievably slow so far (compared to other years), despite all the effort I've put into listings lately. I've come to the point where I really don't know what else there is I can do that I haven't already tried. Just wait it out I suppose, and try not to get disheartened. A good excuse to spend some time in the garden for a change...

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-25-2015

OK, now I need to know if I can use those little 27 x 11 x 11 cm boxes for Small Packet (and Tracked Packet). Dare I try out the new CP website for information???

Why wouldn't you be able to use them? They are bigger than the minimum dimensions required for both services. You can use them for expedited Canada too.

I've used 15 x 15 x 15cm boxes where I've had to fold over the label and have never had a problem. But I do make sure that I don't fold it in the middle of the address or the barcode.

You can also adjust your settings so that the label is slightly smaller but I haven't ever had the need to do that.

The odd thing is that when I tried a few minutes ago to enter the same dimensions into the (new, improved) CP website to get an Expedited USA rate, it accepted everything, no error message. I guess they're not quite up to speed.

As long as I can remember the CP site will give a price for expedited parcel USA even if the minimum measurements are too small. I don't know why it does that but it does confuse a lot of people.