On last month’s poll results, Maria (aka Maria_Castro) from Portugal suggested we asked everyone’s opinion about the postal services in their country… admittedly a very subjective (and perhaps touchy) topic. Still, we thought it would be interesting to get a feeling of the national reputation of postal operators. Which ones stood out? And would their domestic image match the perception we have of them from abroad?
Overall, the results are pretty heartwarming! The vast majority of postcrossers think their post offices are doing a good job, with a fair amount going as far as saying they’re excellent.
But since the question was about each national post office, the important analysis comes on a country basis. So how do these results compare on a national level? To find out, we had a closer look at the results from countries with more than 50 votes (for more accurate results):
The results more or less reflect the general trend described above, with a few exceptions.
For instance, Italy pops out immediately as the country with the highest number of unhappy postcrossers (80% rate their postal service as poor or fair)… which I confess is a bit of a surprise. Is it the stamp prices? Or perhaps problems in the mail delivery? Maybe some local postcrossers can enlighten us in the comments! Other postal operators with mediocre results were Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Sweden (around 60% on the same metric).
On the happy side of the spectrum, Japan's Post has an extraordinary reputation: 74% of Japanese postcrossers think their post office is doing an excellent job and further 23% consider it good, with less than 3% in the remaining categories. Pretty impressive!
Other Asian countries follow closely behind, with South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan all having roughly 90% happy customers (rating either excellent or good). In Europe, Switzerland has the most content postcrossers, also with over 90% satisfaction, with Austria, Germany and Latvia trailing closely.
Please keep in mind that the answers to this kind of “perception survey” are always subjective… so remember to take the results with a grain of salt. That said, what influenced your vote? And if you were in charge of your country’s postal operator, what would you change?
PS – Any statisticians in the house? 😅 If you’d like give us a hand in future polls, let us know!
107 comments so far
And, I actually can't blame Italians for voting this way. I've been there on holidays this year and not only was it a horrible problem to find a place where I will be able to send the cards, it took almost a month for my postcards to reach their destinations, all of them sent to another EU country, not some strange place at the end of the world. It's definitely not an experience I want to repeat!
But unhappy Swedes? That's strange...
1) TIMING: from dispatch to delivery takes too much time. Usually it is faster sending abroad (excluding postcard which are not taken in great consideration) because, as soon as mail goes outside Italy, it is taken by better postal services. Many many times, it takes more to dispatch mails to Rome (from Milan) than dispatching to EU countries. Timing is terribly long also with registered mails to Italy.
2) COST: every year prices increases at least 12% while services are going worst and worst (the more little variation for economy mail up to 20 grams; some weight categories increased of many euros last time, like registered up to 20 grams, it was 4,50€, now it is 5€). One stamp to Italy was priced 0,85€ until last years, now it is 0,95€. Higher prices for a better service? Not at all!!
3) SAFETY: there is a serious numbers of loss. Many stolen, others opened and stolen inside items, other again damaged during transports. Dispatching with poste italiane is a loss of money and reputation for those who do business.
4) POSTAL OFFICES SITUATION: don't go to Italian post offices, unless you have strong nerves!!!!! It's a friendly advice, trust me. Hours of waiting (I mean really hours... it generally requires about 20-30 minutes in my city's main office before seeing our ticket number called, and my city is not big). Besides, it is scientifically approved that people who work in postal services are 90% lazy, 70% don't know their job (still sometimes they ask me what they have to do to dispatch a parcel abroad) and 50% is impolite. Of course, it depends from city to city...
5) POSTE SITUATION: this is the worst point. Italian post service no longer lives with... postal services! Poste italiane today is a bank, an insurance and whatever you want. Ah yes, I was forgetting, yes sometimes it is also a post!
6) ITALIAN SITUATION: it's too long to explain, but you should understand what I mean......
7) POSTMEN: hard work, I supposed bad paid, many times impolite, maybe it's because they are comprehensibly stressed out; not very careful (water over mails, bend mails to put them almost everywhere, opened sometimes - it was just to give a look everything was there! -), dangerous for people (they run as crazy men over their scooter), always busy. Don't misunderstand, if Italian service is a mess, it's not postmen fault, they are just part of the declining.... don't talk about alternate delivering....
8) PHILATELY: what's that? Ah yes, I see, those annoying people who ask me for postage combination over mails! What a silly and useless request (= medium post office man who apply general consideration of poste italiane concerning philately).
9) EVERYTHING bad you can imagine
If there is one thing that really impressed me.... who are those 5 people who voted it as excellent?????????? Or, where do they live?? This is what I daily hear from my customers, who are obviously angry with me if their mail does not arrive, if it is stolen or damages or if it takes 45 days to cover 200 Km. It's almost everyone thought, at least around here. Don't know if there is someone more optimistic. If there is someone, I would be glad to hear why!!
We have high prices for stamps, especially if compared to country like Germany: it would cost me less to send a letter or a postcard from Germany to Italy, than from Italy to Italy...
The service is kinda slow as well, both for outgoing and incoming mail. The mail carriers don't come everyday (somewhere they go every other day, somewhere "when it happens" that could be once every week or less)
But the main problem is: it's really hard to find stamps :( Normal postoffice don't sell them...
[We have some un-official mailservice that are mostly for tourists, but they are even more expensive and even less reliable!]
I voted good rather than excellent for Finland because postage is getting more and more expensive here as well (they already raised their prices twice in 2017 - it now costs 1.50€ to mail a postcard). Also, during my time in Postcrossing (a little over a year now) I feel like cards have started taking longer and longer to arrive. That concerns both the ones I send and the ones I receive.
I really like the services, speed and some special stamps.
I do have two major complaints, however: Post offices keep getting closed. There are less and less post offices around and it can get rather difficult to find a proper post office, especially in rural areas. In my home village, the post office got closed and now you have to go to the grocery store...
The other big complaint is the mail delivery. In rural areas, mail is no longer delivered every day. More like every other day or so, depending on where you live and how much mail you and your neighbours get. Mail hasn't been delivered on Saturdays for decades now, so we're all used to that.
For the Netherlands I voted "fair". The services are declining, there are less post offices and less letter boxes on the streets, whereas the prices go up a lot every year.
The stamps are quite expensive ($2 on average, you can get a meal for $3~4), and most of the time, the postal office runs out of them, so I have to buy even more expensive ones; and you need to specifically ask for stamps when sending an envelope, they use a postage sticker by default.
I have more experience sending postcards and envelopes, parcels not so much; but I've heard bad comments about parcels getting lost, or arriving 2 months later than expected, and so on. I know mail is not a priority in my country, but since a lot of tourists visit us and send mail from here, I think at least customer service should improve a little.
How come some of you voted "poor"? I really don't understand...I think we can't complain at all (esp after reading what others wrote in this thread). Our deliveries are amazingly quick! Within Germany it takes 1-3 days and our overall travel times are one of the fastest. 90 cents for worldwide is super fair too i think! Also, I feel like it's safe and reliable. Talking about letters and postcards here ofc, parcels is a whole different story!
So, be happy with what we have folks.!
We have many similar problems that Italy has, high prices, loooong delivery times (for things traveling just inside Finland, at least), our real post offices seem to be a slowly dying breed, our mailcarriers mow lawns, shovel snow, do the shopping and take the elderly to walks and occasionally they also deliver mail.
Also, so many (it's really become quite ridiculous!) cards and letters travel without getting stamped, there are sites in Finland where people sell these envelopes and cards, because the stamp can be reused. This wouldn't be quite so hilarious/annoying/angering to finnish postcrossers, if this didn't also include cards left at special boxes where you're supposed to get a special stamp for the card (to/on the card?), for example, the Moomin stamp.
And most of the regular post offices are closed, and replaced with "Mail in store", counters in grocery stores (and sometimes other stores). And those who work with the mail doesn't have enough knowledge and interest in it. It drives me nuts when they have to weigh every single postcard and enter the country of destination and country into the computer to figure out how much I have to pay. That has happened when I've divided the postcards I'm sending into two piles, and written the correct postage in the corner, and tells that "these are going to Europe and these are going to the rest of the world."... Having to tell "Each postcard does for sure weigh less that 20 grams, the postage is 17 NOK to every European country and 21 NOK outside Europe, so you can just list X 17 NOK stamps and Y 21 NOK stamps at the computer instead of doing one by one!" shouldn't be neccessary!
But of course, some of those who work the most with the mail in the stores has a quite good grasp of it. And some seems to be intersted in nice stamps as well!
Then of course you decide to go directly to the post office, and chances are that instead of giving you stamps they will glue on your postcard an horrible huge printed label. But maybe you are lucky enough and you find a post office with pretty philatelic stamps. They cost 0,95 euro (around 95% of the stamps issued have that value) and the rate to send a postcard in Europe is 1,00 euro, but you can just add a small 0,05 euro stamps, don't you? Well, no. Because such small stamps (and almost every other small stamps) are out of stocks in almost all the country.
If you are a tourist willing to send a postcard to a friend you would better give up, and this is a real real pity.
To this add that sending a card in Europe is a fair 1,00 euro rate, but when it comes to the rest of the world you jump to 2,20 and 2,90 euro for a single postcard.
And in many small town and especially in south and island Italy mail is not quick at all and sometimes it is delivered just once a week.
That said, I valued my own experience and voted "good". Because I live in a place where mail is delivered almost every workind day, I can go to a philatelic office where I can easily find all the stamps I need (except small ones, those are just a mirage) and, above all, my postwoman is a wonderful person, hard working and always kind and smiling, and she made my vote one point higher.
Real post offices are closing here too, but they haven't completely disappeared yet. That is the one annoying thing - buying stamps offline can be a bit problematic, especially if you're interested in variety. But some postal counters in other shops are actually better at this than the real post offices, and I prefer buying stamps online anyway because shipping is free for orders over 20 € and I can pick and choose in my own time. Although I often think the alternative designs that you can see in the philately newsletter are nicer than the ones they chose for the stamps, I think we have quite a good variety of nice stamps. I'm counting the days until the astrophysics stamps come out in December!
Delivery is fast, mail rarely gets lost and damages don't occour regularly. I have not noticed mailboxes disappearing (of course it might happen in other places and I'm just lucky), although I don't know one that still gets emptied twice a day, which used to be normal. I know in some areas people claim they don't get mail on Mondays, even though the Post says they have not stopped Monday deliveries. I do get mail on Mondays, and my regular postman is one of the nicest guys in the world. There are always instances when things go wrong, but I have yet to find something in this world that is flawless.
Kyoto Central Post Office is amazing. I did not send mail there but it's large and worth a visit for its wide array of postcards, including Gotochi and Disney postcards. I have received postcards from Japan and feel impressed by its fast postal service. Delivery from Japan to Manila takes around one week - usually less than 14 days. No wonder the Japanese rate their postal service as excellent.
even though postal service is running by government, they provide better service than private service. so some of online shopping mall provide delivery option for 'korea postal service' for delivery.
KPS loss customer's package less than 10 million per 1 case and regular mail loss rate is 1millon per 1 case (most of cases are thief)
you can fine a post office every 2 KM in the Seoul and 7 large cities and 1 post office in small towns,
Domestic delivery prices are.
regular postcard price is 0.25 USD / 3-5 delivery day
regular mail price starts from 0.3 USD / 3-5 delivery day
registration regular mail price starts from 1.9 USD / 3-4 delivery day
2 day registration express mail price starts from 2.3 USD / 2 delivery day
1 day registration express mail price starts from 3 USD/ 1 delivery day
2 day registration express package price starts from 3.0 USD / 2 delivery day. (home pick-up)
Oversea delivery prices are
regular postcard price 0.4 USD
regular mail price starts from 0.6 USD for Asia, 0,65 for (Europe and America)
I've never lost my letters and package yet~
For making better working condition for postal crews
government will hire more postal crews in a couple of years.
Then something else happened. Sweden no longer wanted to be a small post nation. They thought that hey, if we join Denmark, we will be bigger and stronger and everything will be better! They didn't care about the fact that the Danish post didn't go so well. Or the fact that they split the new company PostNord 60-40 even though the Swedish post's economy stood for 67%. For some reason, they thougt it was a good idea to sell themselves cheap.
However, Denmark didn't stop sinking after this. Their results sunk like a rock. Then Sweden started to get a bit grumpy, and blamed the Swedes for not sending enough mail. Therefore they raised the postage. Again and again. And again. They started to sack loyal mail carriers and other mail staff, instead hiring very expensive economists who quit after a few months and got a huge check for quitting. The mail staff started to wear out and tried their own methods of coping with the pressure. They started hiding mail. Throwing whole bags with mail in the forest. Starting to skip delivery some days. Stopped trying to deliver parcels, sending a text message to a person who had been waiting by the window all day for that package, saying that they had tried to deliver but nobody was home. Throwing parcels carelessly into the post vans. Not securing the vans, leaving parcels and mail all over the highway.
The Swedes started to get tired of this. Demanding answers. The CEO apperared in newspapers and television, very superior, telling the Swedes that he disagreed with us, he thought that everything was perfectly fine, and that this talk of missing mail was just a myth. Said that ok, well, if you think that we should do better than good, we will.
Not.
Then there was the issue with the postage. In earlier days, there was a value printed on the stamps, and when the postage was raised, you could buy additional stamps with low value to cover that. Then they changed this into having stamps with no value printed on them, meaning that a stamp with the text ”brev” was valid no matter how old it was. To send a letter abroad took two of these stamps. One year ago, PostNord decided to raise the cost to send abroad, and said that it should be three stamps on a letter, thus increasing the cost with 50%. When the Swedish postcrossers asked why they had to raise the cost so much, they got the answer that it had to be easy to send mail. Three stamps was easy. To buy additional stamps like we did two decades ago was suddenly far too complicated for us.
Three months later they raised the cost for the stamp, meaning that it cost even more to send cards abroad. Yet again the argument was that we don't send enough mail.
The jokes about PostNord are both very sad and hilarious. The confidence is completely gone. Still, most mail do arrive, but the feeling that we can't be sure is something quite new for us and we don't like it one bit.
If I were voting for the U.S. I would also have said excellent. In my opinion, mail pick-up is better than in Germany (it is picked up at your door or mailbox when the mail is dropped off), delivery times are worse, and the sorting machines in the U.S. are a bit more unfriendly to postcards.
"we live in a wonderful country and all other countries envy us.
because we send postcards by surface mail, not only because it's 85 percent cheaper, but because the card will be obtained three times faster ( I whinnied when got to know this fact. And cried, 'cause it's nonsense. And whipped again...)
We are well-known to workers of Central Poslat Office, because only this post office provides on sale beautiful postage stamps, not the standard sticker with views of the Kremlin (I remember, one of my postcard recipient adddmited that my card was the first card with other stamp)
Our postcards need for eleven days to reach the recipient in the UK, and for two months - to the recipient from the suburbs of Moscow (and week or two for travelling, if a asender and a repicient live in one city)
We have on the official website of the Russian post hanging slogan "Post delivers" (in the slang a word "deliver" has the value "deliver emotion", not always positive), and unofficial national motto is "not all is lost"
It is in our post office you can buy a bedclothes, a screwdriver and a gum, to get access credit, but may not be sticker-stamps of needed nominal.
This is our Is our mail - the subject of a sad joke. But still it is ours. Russian Post"
But I voted for "fair": some years ago it was woкse
What I like a lot is the fact that we can still use stamps with the old belgian francs. I often get compliments on the stamps I put on my cards. In my experience, cards to China travel the longest, followed by Russia. They also get lost the most.
However, a major problem about ‘Poste italiane’ is that now the public company acts as a bank and they are much more interested in keeping and lending money than in delivering letters and postcards. They are eager to dismiss the traditional post and to turn it in electronic mail as much as possible.
Philatelic offices are efficient because they are for the amateur and they sell stamps for collection more than for delivery. Stamps are expensive and times are long. Postcrosser’s life is not always easy and it is not uncommon they laugh at us when we are asking for stamps. I am not at all surprised at people voting poor.
Germana
Overall it's quite good and we can buy all the stamps online with free overnight delivery (very useful especially when you work).
However, I find it very sad that more and more post offices are closing down, especially in rural areas. I'm lucky I live in a big city and have a post office close to my house. But I have a friend living in a village and they closed all post offices accessible on foot, because they believe everyone there has a car (a very bizarre way of thinking, especially since everyone encourages us to stop using cars).
We don't have any more home deliveries of parcels (they may deliver them only if you have an interphone, but it's not always). So even if you are at home the day of the delivery you will not get your parcel directly. Officially, it is because the postman should not climb the stairs and waste their precious time, but I live on ground floor and they still don't want to come with big parcels.
And our post office also sells now everything (from electronics to books, DVDs and sweets). It has been a bank for a long time now and is actually very popular with population, since many people still pay their bills at the post.
But the prices I find them really high: 1.50 CHF (around 1.28 euro) for Europe and 1.90 CHF (1.62 euro) for international.
But they are still fast and reliable, so at least we have that.
I think our postal service is pretty good!
Indonesian postal service issued many good stamps now, but that only can find in big city.
About delivery time, Indonesia is a big country and our travel time sure longer than another country.
The big problem here is about the price. Many post officer dont understand the price to send postcard . That make the cost very expensive and many people this is an expensive hobby and cant stay for a long time.
I hope in the next polling, will be better
Japan also sells lots of stamps at the post office but if you can't make it during post office hours, the convenience stores here all carry stamps so that you can ask for the denomination you want. The 70 yen stamp is a little bit more difficult to come but you do find them.
Also, there are lots of antique markets so I like going to the markets and buying old unused stamps. Lately I've been sending people postcards with stamps as old as 1964! I worried they might not make it through but recently the three cards that I sent and got lost were all from 2016 so that definitely wasn't the problem.
I do see that stamps to Russia and China get lost the most. Also they aren't very good at communication. I take pictures of all the postcards I send before sending them so if it gets lost I can still send an electric copy to the receiver but they can't understand what I'm trying to say.
Also to add, in Japan there is a huge tradition of sending postcards at New Years. It is a big business and it's almost rude if you don't send them. Now, here's the fun part. The post card stores all the cards and delivers all the post cards in one bundle at your door on January 1st. Isn't that amazing!? You can start sending out New Years cards in September and the post office will keep them till the new year and not lose a single one. So yes, Japan's postal system is fantastic.
Neshoba
That's why I think the statistic above is not representative. As you write, it is subjective.
I'm from Switzerland, the handling of postcards is great, the handling of parcels a disaster.
Postcards between POLAND and other countries with efficient postal services travel 2-3 days. Yet the Polish post ranks equal or worse than the services of Russia and China???
Finnish post office is nowadays a trash company - in my childhood the post was delivered twice in weekdays Mo.-Fri and Saturdays once. Now we get it 3 or 4 days a week, and it can take 3 or more days, maybe not come at all. They have lost mail, parcels - and now they will find always new fees and higher prices for everything which was early naturally included.
Maria
No cards
Closed for lunch and do not open even during working hours {(10-3) is the actual time but they work only from (10-12)
Postboxes rarely found
Chennai, tamil nadu, india
Lots of pretty stamps now; we even have postcrossing stamps. They used to use definitive stamps, but now they use national orchid stamps and national satellite stamps as their definitive stamps (the orchid stamps are pretty!).
Back then when I was new on Postcrossing, my postcards traveled for average 30 days, now it's faster!
The problems are, like @KoJep mentioned above, these pretty stamps are only on stock at post offices in big cities, but you can order it online on the philatelic website tho. Lots of post officers don't know the postage price to send postcard internationally. I experienced this twice; I was asked to put IDR7000 stamps for postcard to China (it should be IDR6000) and put IDR9000 stamps for postcards to Europe (it should be IDR7000). My case is better than lot of Indonesians I know (my friend is told by the officer that international postage is IDR8000 and she already sent about 15 postcards before I let her know the actual postage price). I even know the postage price better than the officers; the philatelic corner officer often asks me the postage price when I pay a visit and there are people who want to buy stamps for their postcards.
Some older postcrossers also told me that this postage price is way more expensive than the old one; luckily it doesn't change as fast as another countries' stories mentioned above... yet.
another problem I face is the domestic traveling postcards. There are times when postcards I sent internationally arrives faster than postcards I sent domestically. Once got postcard from fellow Indonesian that sent on July and arrived on September... And now another fellow Indonesian sent me postcard on World Post Day and I haven't received it yet...
I personally hope Indonesian Postal Service get better (and the postage price get cheaper LOL~)
Can't you buy stamps online? It sounds as if it's a real challenge to find stamps in post offices or other shops, but doesn't Poste Italiane even have a sort of online shop? You'd think any postal service would have a philately department ...
And China - I need to stick address in Chineese always because Chineese postmans don't understand address in English! Is is excellent?
UA-1592922 Janemex Czechia 15/Sep/2017 (expired) 62 days
UA-1592455 Kobussmith South Africa 13/Sep/2017 (expired) 64 days
UA-1592363 DariaKandakova Russia 13/Sep/2017 (expired) 64 days
UA-1591086 nithesh3 India 8/Sep/2017 (expired) 69 days
UA-1591011 marraskuu Finland 8/Sep/2017 (expired) 69 days
UA-1588108 ValeriaPliskach Russia 29/Aug/2017 (expired) 79 days
UA-1584500 IngwarBarnaby Russia 15/Aug/2017 (expired) 92 days
UA-1549890 sabinarachel Philippines 7/Apr/2017 (expired) 223 days
The cost of stamp to sent out the postcards worldwide is 50cents ( usd0.12 ; i hope the price won't change since other countries experience that ) . I usually put the limited edition stamp collection on every postcards that i sent out ( and the cost is more than 50cents usually , you are lucky if you got it ! ) .
i admit that the "red box" on the street has been decreased slightly , maybe the malaysian believe that using the mailbox at the post office is more safety than at the street .
from day-to-day , the number of post office has been increased especially in the city . it is because the national post office has been set up in the shopping malls ( again , especially in the city or new city ) . the ecommerce also contribute to the need of the post office because they sell the suitable envelope or box for the packaging at the reasonable price .
the national post always come out with the new design for limited edition stamps .
i always saw the vacancy for the postman in every media . i don't know their turnover rate , but it seems like the retail and F&B line in here which is high . you don't offer walk-in interview frequently if the turnover rate is low , right ?
the malaysian post office also provide bill payment service , renew driving license , renew the road tax , selling the mobile prepaid , provide pawn or gold transaction , currency exchange and investment for national scheme
there's one thing i personally unsatisfied ; stamp system . for international postage especially for letters or greetings cards , it's have their own stamp which stated "international" . i don't like the design of the stamps . i'd rather use limited edition stamp compared to "international" label stamp .
the expired postcard ( did not reach the receiver ) that i always get is russia .
It's nice to read all the discussion in here =)
Just two things I would like to request to Korean Postal service are selling a variety of postcards at the post office like Japan and issuing more various size and design of stamps.
As a Russian, I have to say that Russian post used to be worse than it is now in my experience. Maybe it's progressing slowly, who knows. It's still too far from postal services of other countries and it takes way longer time for cards to be delivered to Russia or sent from Russia. They disappear quite often as well. To be fair, I have to say our postal workers have very, very bad salaries so I would rather wish they had higher salaries first.
I just really wish that Russian Post will be more or less working in the future. The delivery to Moscow can be way better, I am pretty sure of that. But alas, I had lots of postcards expired that were sent to Russia in the years of using postcrossing project. :(
Also I would like to say that Kazakhstani post is kind of okay but overall, it definitely needs to be more productive and also not to "eat" mail. Let's hope it will be better.
Overseas though, whoa. Russia and China have the worst times/amount of lost items from my experience. Poland was one of the best in Europe for me, so I'm surprised. Usually less than 5 days each way.
About 5 % of my sent postcards expire, I do not know where they get lost.
On the other hand, the postage for a card is comparably low (90 c) and I get a wide variety of beautiful stamps. Stamps are delivered by the online shop within 1 -2 days and above a sum of 20 € shipping is free. I do not buy stamps in a post office.
I'd love to read something about the Postcrossing algorithm - when does it choose a new ID for me, how many IDs are given in a minute or which criteria is there?
It's not bad, I can for example purchase the stamps in the internet and let the postman bring them to my postbox - but it would be nice to have it in the offices, not only online like the int. reply coupon. And additionally, bring back the old postbox stations, more of them, even when we have to pay for them.
Over the last 5 years we had a huge price increase - so intl. letters jumped from 0.7€ to 0.9€ and national letters from 0.55€ to 0.7€ - but compared with other countries (hint: France) even that is low...
Package delivery gets better due to the ever rising amount of packages. We have 24/7 stations for receiving and sending packages and so on...
I found it interesting to look at the other countries though. For instance I know when I send cards to one country, it can take 45 or more days to arrive. I could mail 7 cards in 7 days to and they will all arrive on the same day which just seems odd to me I remember thinking "Do they just get one giant boatload that they deliver all at once, haha" So it's interesting to see how these other countries view their mail service too.
However, I received the postcard was damaged.
It is unknown which country it was damaged.
The postcard was accompanied by a note of apology for being damaged.
I would like to say to everyone in the post office staff around the world.
Please treat our letter with responsibility carefully!
Aim for superiority！
€1.35 for international, including postcards, and €1 for domestic.
But I found it interesting in the inquiry that many refer to excessive cost of tariffs or excessive delay I think without probably knowing what is happening in other countries. It would be nice to have a data sheet with the main shipping rates for a postcard or envelope of the various nations (national – foreign), the average salary of a worker (to estimate the incidence), the Postcrossing average received and sent in several years of activity (considering that 2 days are lost between sending and receiving).
This would allow a real cross comparison between postal services in the recent time.
The most challenging part of the postcrossing for me is where to buy postcards.
Thank you all for participating in this poll. A happy mailbox to everyone!
I understand the postcrossers which tell they would rather not to send postcards to Russia and China because of their awful post services, but it sounds offensively. It's not our fault.
Let's share postcards despite all this technical troubles! :)
And buying single stamps at the counter drives the other customers crazy because it takes so long. I remember situations where an angry mob had formed behind me while I was picking stamps for like 15 minutes 😏
I believe whether the postal service is good or bad largely depends on where you live in this country. Some postcrossing members from smaller cities complained on local forums saying many of their postcards get lost. As most postcards cannot be tracked, it is hard to make formal complains to the regulator.
The cost for sending postcard abroad is quite low here. It costs only 4.50 CNY, which is less than 0.70 USD. But on the other hand, the China Post processes mails in a much slower way. I checked the average days it takes to send postcards from China, HK, Taiwan to Russia and Germany, using data of the most active members. It usually takes 10 more days for a postcard to travel to its destination if it was sent from China comparing with the other two nearby territories.
SENDING postcards: Domestic mail takes between 1-2 weeks -- pretty slow considering that the postcards I have sent to Japan take around two weeks. Sending postcards to Europe and America takes at least 3 weeks to one month. Central Post Office can have long lines on late mornings. Sometimes they run out of lower denomination stamps too (like the one peso and three peso stamps). I tell myself, "At least the postcards are sent successfully 90 percent of the time." And at least I can buy the special stamps there.
Branch post office near my house sells very few varieties of stamps, which run out very quickly, especially during Christmas season, when many Filipinos send Christmas cards overseas.
RECEIVING postcards: I don't like it that much when I receive postcards with purple smudge or stamp marks in FRONT. Delivery is erratic. I usually receive a bunch of postcards once a week (if any). I get the impression the postman sometimes bundle up the postcards together before sending them to my mailbox in one go. So I register 4-5 postcards on one day, which takes up some time. I would have preferred one postcard a day or every few days, but I think this set-up is impossible in Manila.
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I like Hong Kong postal service much better. The Causeway Bay branch has a stamp vending machine where I can insert change to buy stamps. I affix the stamp on the postcard and drop them at the correct slots: "Air" for international mail and "Local / Surface" mail. Instructions are printed in English and Chinese so no worries for foreigners. Stamp booklets can be bought at 7-11, Circle K, and Vango convenience stores.
Lines at the branch post office can get long, but the staff are professional and quick, so I didn't have to wait long for my mail to be processed.
In the case of Argentina, it is also complicated! It is quite expensive for an average salary and sometimes they do not arrive. Also it has happened to me that they arrive if some stamp.
And since I live in a small town, the mailman sometimes does not give them to me immediately, but hopes to have several to bring to my house. Obvious that for the people I am the "girl of the postcards" and luckily, being a small branch they still have the traditional stamps, since in the big ones they use standard stickers that are not very nice.
Postage for postcard is acceptable,5 RMB or 0.77 USD for international, 0.8 RMB or 0.12 USD for national, the postage for international postcard increased in 3rd Jan this year,but postage for parcles/letters increased a lot!
Post offices can be found easily here in Shanghai,but you can’t buy commemorative stamps there,only definitive stamps are sold in post office.
My postcards average travel to many countries take over 30 days mostly even if I live in a big port city,which should be a advantage compared with many other cities in China. And mail between China and Russia is totally a mystery,sometimes it takes less than 30 days,and most times it takes over 3 months...
My mailman is great as he delivers mails as long as I have mails,I had some bad experience of deferred delivery,but I don’t think it’s the mailman’s fault,I got over 60 postcards/letters at a time in 2016,I don’t believe they all arrive during that time.English is not our mother language,so Yes some postman didn’t know English,but all the addresses in English of international mails will be translated into Chinese before their delivery,it takes time as well,after that it’s easy for postman to deliver the mails,so maybe the problem happened in the translation bureaus,but who knows?sometimes postcards and parcels got lost,and you don’t know where to complain as they can’t be tracked.
My postcards’ expired rate is around 3% for last year,that’s already better than before, I can only send 400+ postcards a year while a friend in Taiwan can send about 800 postcards a year,that may presumably explain the efficiency of China post.
Postcrossers in China should leave their address both in English and Chinese for those who can print address,postcard with Chinese address definitely travels faster!
--Ellie Blumenbach
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