Success with General Delivery Packages

[JudyJB]

I want to order something from a company that ships ONLY United States Post Office.

Have most of you had good experiences receiving packages via General Delivery? Are there any tips I should know?

I will tell you that when I first started out, my younger son sent me a bunch of mail to a General Delivery address and it never did show up, in spite of my making three trips to that post office, so my experience was not good. Now, admittedly, my son was not sure how he addressed it! Duh, I gave him very specific instructions, but I should have had him take a photo of the address.

[Liz]

I just had two shipments sent to a small PO in Ajo, AZ. The first one arrived in 3 days, and the second one in just 2 days. I'm very pleased as this was my first General Delivery experience. I think I will choose small town POs for future deliveries too.

I called the PO ahead of time to make sure that they accepted General Deliveries, and to get the exact address that I should use. I also had a tracking number, so I could track its progress.

[JudyJB]

Good point about choosing small town post offices! Less chance of their losing packages.

[Bethers]

Always call first and get the exact way they want it addressed. Then confirm where they are located. One reason small towns can be better is because they usually only have one location. Many times people have things sent to one post office, but that's not the one they then go to to pick up when there are multiple offices.

Some post offices in towns that swell with snowbirds put a limit on how many packages one person can receive. But one such place with signs saying that admitted to me they don't have time, etc, to enforce that, but the sheer volume lessened when they put the signs up. Ask people in Quartzsite that have waited in line long, long times. That's not a good place to have mail sent during the big show, especially.

[Birdie]

I have used General Delivery several times and normally have a tracking number. However, calling them before hand is good, though you can find that online too. Not every PO accepts General Delivery.