I'm haven't been ignoring your question, I just honstly dont know the answer. We do ship orders every weekday, and if we get your order before 2pm EST and everythong you ordered is in stock your order will go out that same day.

I know thats not what you were looking for, but I'm honestly not sure how smart mail works.

Edited by - empire man on Aug 14 2002

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No reflection on your shipping-ADE gets it out each day, as you stated. I guess it just lays at SmartMail for awhile (waiting for the next pack train--ha-ha)

Edited by - menace on Aug 14 2002

Edited by - menace on Aug 14 2002

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With the number of packages that Empire probably ships on a daily basis, it is very unlikely that they qualify for any of these discounts.

What Smart Mail does is they accept packages from many different shippers. Using bar codes which contain all of the package information (supplied by Empire and other companies) they are able to sort and merge the packages from all of their clients, and achieve significant postage discounts.

The other thing that they probably do (at something that most freight consolidators do) is called "Zone skipping". Rather than just giving the sorted mail directly to the local post office, they transport the packages directly to one of many USPS Sectional Centers.

So, not only do they get the sortation discounts, but they also get the discount based on how far the package needs to travel. They are able to provide this service for less than the average discount that they are able to achieve by co-mingling packages and zone-skipping.

Also, this service shouldn't create an additional delay on average (shipments already going to a nearby location probably take a little longer, shipmets going to a distant location probably get there a little faster). This is because the consolidators will bring their packages to a centralized location, where they will be merged with packages from ALL of their other clients around the country. Then the sorted packages are trucked to the Sec. Centers. This could cause a package going from PA to NY to go through St. Louis (if this were where the consolidators sortation facility was located).

Media Mail is a version of Fourth Class Mail for the USPS. It is their lowest class and doesn't get priority over any other packages.

Unfortunately (for us, fortunately for Empire), a service like this can save a company a LOT of money. Since Empire is picking up the cost for this shipping, my guess is that a service like this is a big reason that they can afford to do so.

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8/22--nothing today either

8/23--order # 2643652 pkg arrived today, none the worse for wear from it's 8 day journey (it was riding loose in the box). Many, many scratches-the picture appears ok, from what I've seen so far, but the audio is badly distorted throughout the disc! I see from their website that SmartMail guarantees 1-4 days delivery! You can use my order # to ID me to trace all my SmartMail orders & ask them to explain.

Edited by - menace on Aug 22 2002

Edited by - menace on Aug 23 2002

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