Thanks to our new fulfillment service, we can offer two tiers of shipping to U.S. customers: Cheap-as-chips Media Mail and Sometimes-more-expensive Priority.
Here’s the difference so that you pick the right one for you.
Media Mail: Like First Class, Media Mail is the same price no matter where you are in the country. Sending a box Media Mail across the street is the same price as sending it across the country. The downside to Media Mail is it is slow, especially around Christmas. It can take 10 business days for you to get your books.
In our long experience with Media Mail, we have found it to be as fast as First Class during most of the year. About early November it slows to a crawl. But it is cheap and the way I prefer to send and receive books.
Priority Mail: Unlike Media mail, the distance you ship a package helps determine the cost. Sending a box across the street is cheap. Sending the same box to California might cost three times as much. Priority is much faster – usually two or three days – but that’s not a guarantee.
So if you are organized or patient and order your books well before you need them, Media Mail is going to be your best bet. If you need them fast or live in the Midwest near our warehouse in Indiana, Priority might be right for you.
— Christopher Schwarz
Media Mail is “last in line” and ships space available and is why it slows down around the Christmas Holidays. Thanks for the two options.
Cheers,
Michael O’Brien
Alabama
Ha, it took 14 days for me to get a first class letter last month from two towns away.
Offering mule train delivery should be your goal. I would choose the mule train option. And Megan should be riding shotgun.
Charles Hayward would want it too.
Tracking is available for media mail, automatic in fact. Is it because of the volume you ship you don’t get it?
Must be new-ish. We didn’t used to get tracking. I’ll correct the entry.
Echoing others, I know tracking to be available for Media Mail now, though it used not to be.
Priority mail flat-rate boxes (there are three sizes) are priced like media mail and have 2-3 day delivery guarantees. The weight restrictions are such that your books would have to be printed on lead sheets to exceed them. There are also priority-mail regional boxes (A and B) that are priced “by the mile,” so to speak, but have (for all intents-and-purposes) no weight restrictions and may be far cheaper than regular priority mail.
MAXIMUM FULFILLMENT!!!
Media mail sends to Canada ?
Must find a way to make it cheaper not only for the shipping of the books but everything else you make. .
Media Mail does not go to Canada. I’m afraid the cheapest rate will always be through Lee Valley.
Ok.