Not anymore. They will gladly take their cut of my income, but Paypal is no longer allowing me to print shipping labels. I am beyond pissed and annoyed.
On May 25, 2011, I attempted to print a USPS shipping label off of Paypal like I've [correct use of] literally done over 1,000 times. I was greeted with this response:
PayPal Shipping is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Huh. So I try again. All day, every hour I attempted to print out shipping labels. No success. I contact Paypal's support through email. They suggested that I'm just an idiot and doing something wrong. Needless to say, I told them in polite words, that I do this crap every GD day and I know how to print an effing shipping label. After phoning the customer support, I got a somewhat more satisfying response. I was informed that Paypal shipping was broken (for a handful of poor souls) and it will be fixed in 48-72 hours.
After getting off the phone I was shocked. 2-3 DAYS before I can print a label?! You have got to be sh*tting me! (I'd lost all sense of class by this point.) For 3 days I still tried printing labels with no success, but knew that was going to be fixed soon, so I didn't stress too much.
I finally gave up hope that Paypal was going to be fixed, and had to lug accumulated orders to the Post Office so each could be given postage. I was there for a while...
It is going on 3 weeks and I STILL cannot print my shipping labels through Paypal. I am forced to go to the Post Office and have a human manually add postage to ALL of my outgoing orders. This wouldn't be too horrible if it didn't cost more - I have to pay an extra $.62 for Delivery Confirmation when I ship my domestic orders at the Post Office. I've shipped about 50 orders since this crap started, so I'm out about $30 so far. I don't want to raise the cost of shipping on my listings, because I don't want the Domestic shipping price to be higher than the International shipping price. Also, it's not my customers' fault that Paypal is completely incompetent.
Sometimes I email the Paypal support person that I've been dealing with, and send him my sob stories. He entertains my complaints by actually responding to me. If you are bored, here is a TINY smidgen of the correspondence between me and Paypal on this issue:
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05/28/2011 07:18 AM
I have been unable to print labels for 3 days now. Can you give me any kind of time frame?? When I called Paypal support days ago I was told that the problem would be fixed in 48-72 hours. 72 hours has now passed. This is ridiculous. Look at my account. See all the things that I need to ship. :(
-Brandy
-Brandy
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05/29/2011 11:05 AM
I know that probably only a handful of people are suffering from this "not being able to print shipping labels" issue, so it may not be that high of a priority for Paypal. However, it is seriously affecting my business. If I at least knew when it would be resolved, I could plan for alternative shipping methods. It has been 4 days since the problem arose. :( I've had a Paypal account for many years and have given Paypal a lot of money in transaction fees. I really wish this problem would be resolved. :(
*waterfall tears*
-Brandy
*waterfall tears*
-Brandy
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MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND. ALL EMPLOYEES OUT OF THE OFFICE AND NO ONE LEFT TO WORK ON MY SAD LITTLE ISSUE.
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05/31/2011 07:01 AM
Hi Brandy,
Engineering is still trying to determine the root cause for this bug. At this point in time, we do not have an ETA.
We are recommending to merchant to use the USPS or UPS web sites to print labels until it is fully resolved.
As soon as we find out anything, it will be passed along to you.
Thank you for your patience,
Frank
Engineering is still trying to determine the root cause for this bug. At this point in time, we do not have an ETA.
We are recommending to merchant to use the USPS or UPS web sites to print labels until it is fully resolved.
As soon as we find out anything, it will be passed along to you.
Thank you for your patience,
Frank
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06/07/2011 08:33 AM
Wow. So it's been 2 weeks that I have NOT BEEN ABLE TO PRINT SHIPPING LABELS OFF PAYPAL. It is not possible to print First Class labels off of USPS.com (which is the shipping option that my customers paid for). I have to physically go to a post office everyday and have an employee process all my packages. I then I have to return home and manually enter in all the tracking info that I over paid for (it is $.60 more expensive at the post office than online). This is now costing my business money. Am I going to be compensated for all the extra costs I've accrued as I am forced to ship my orders in this manner???
-Brandy
-Brandy
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06/07/2011 08:48 AM
Hi Brandy,
I do apologize for the inconvenience, but this is in the hands of the engineering department. They are working to fix the problem. They are aware of problems this is causing .merchants.
Have you tried shipping through eBay?
We will notify you when engineering has solved the problem.
Thank you for your patience,
Frank
I do apologize for the inconvenience, but this is in the hands of the engineering department. They are working to fix the problem. They are aware of problems this is causing .merchants.
Have you tried shipping through eBay?
We will notify you when engineering has solved the problem.
Thank you for your patience,
Frank
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AHHH!!!! So. I have no freaking clue when I will be able to print my labels off of Paypal again. I don't mean to be a whiner, but this sucks. Hence, Paypal sucks so bad.
You could try and us the shipping from USPS, but you would have to ship priority because they don't offer online postage for first class postage. But you can print out the postage just like you can on paypal.
ReplyDeletehttps://sss-web.usps.com/cns/landing.do
Priority isn't that much more especially if you want convenience. It's just a thought though! I stay as far away from the PO as I can...good luck!
Thanks for the suggestion! I print labels off USPS.com when I have orders that request Priority shipping, but most of my orders are only charged enough shipping to cover First Class. As my items are small, to ship them Priority is more than double their normal shipping cost. :(
ReplyDeleteI've never used it, but I've heard other people talk about stamps.com. Have you looked into that?
ReplyDeleteOh and endicia is GREAT! It's cost a fee every month but you can get a free 30 day trial and you can print first class labels on it. Maybe in 30 days your paypal will be back in the label printing game!
ReplyDeleteI believe I looked into Stamps.com a long time ago, but didn't go with it for some reason. I know have a reason to return! Thanks, ya'll, for the ideas! I guess I just hoped things with Paypal would be fixed by now. Oh, well. These new methods may be my saving grace! :)
ReplyDeleteThere's a "back door" url for this kind of stuff, isn't there? Do a search on the Etsy forums and see if you can find it--it always worked for me when I got the Paypal shipping not available error. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI've tried everything. :( It's up to Paypal now to get it fixed. There are a ton of other people on the Etsy forums complaining about the same issue, so at least I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteI just happened on to your art and blog and I have to say, I like your style and stick to it business! can't wait for your return. Sorry you had such an issue. I'd entertain you with my Shutterfly stories, but, they'd sound all too similar. Happy New Year!
ReplyDelete