Dear Mr. Sage,
Why doesn't Flowers by the Sea ship through the U.S. Postal Service? It would probably cost less to ship two plants by USPS priority mail than by your regular shipping service. Also, your shipper was careless when delivering a package to us. The delivery driver tossed the box onto our front porch without considering its contents.
Sincerely,
Frustrated with Shipping

Dear Frustrated with Shipping,
We are sorry to hear that you had a negative experience with our shipper, but want to assure you that we seldom hear complaints of this sort. Most customers who provide feedback seem pleased with our shipper's efforts. However, at Flowers by the Sea, we keep track of mail-order complaints and communicate them to our shipper if a pattern of poor service develops.

As to the U.S. Postal Service, we love it. However, USPS priority boxes are too small for the size of our plants. Some online nurseries cut back the size of plants significantly to make them fit into these priority boxes, but we don't want to compromise our quality in this manner.

Of course, it is possible to priority ship through USPS in larger boxes that are sold by other sources. We've compared the prices for shipping in larger boxes through our private shipper and USPS. The post office lost due to its higher prices. Some nurseries increase the cost of their plants in order to use USPS priority shipping.

Our shipper's rates make it possible to decrease the shipping cost per plant as order sizes increase. Overall, we choose to ship larger plants, offer reasonable plant prices and charge accurate shipping costs based on customer locations.

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you continue to have delivery problems.

Sincerely,
Mr. Sage

Ask Mr. Sage is a question-and-answer feature based on topics raised in calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. To send a query, just click on the Ask Mr. Sage button on this page.