Christmas Gift Shipping

November 27, 2017 8:44 AM

Do any major E-Commerce companies ship to UPS Box numbers without a street address?

Looking for a non-clothing (not L.L.Bean, Territory Ahead, etc.) E-Commerce company (i.e. William Sonoma, Harry and David, etc) that will ship to P.O. Box number addresses without street addresses.

I have several friends who live in areas that do not have mail box delivery and I would like to send Holiday gifts to them.

Thanks

posted by leafwoman to Shopping (5 answers total)

I assume you mean a USPS PO Box and not a UPS box, correct?

Amazon will ship to a PO Box. There's a little bug/feature in Amazon's address input where it will say an address is entered incorrectly or not deliverable three times before finally accepting it, if you enter the same address each time. It'll throw up error messages before finally accepting the fate of the address it doesn't prefer.

Just make sure for the address that you clearly state PO Box ##### and the zip code. Don't include any street address at all.

I can't speak for any of the retailers you list specifically but I just went through this with Amazon about a week back.
posted by phunniemee at 9:09 AM on November 27, 2017

Response by poster: Yes, USPS
posted by leafwoman at 9:21 AM on November 27, 2017

Basically, if the merchant is using USPS as their carrier (as Amazon does), a PO box should be a go.
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:48 AM on November 27, 2017

I'm not sure I understand your question, but you can deliver to UPS/FedEx etc. locations and have the recipients pick up the package instead of sending it to their house.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:26 PM on November 27, 2017

As a person who lives in such an area (albeit in Canada) -- why can't you just fire in their street address? Their local PO will sort out that it goes in box 522 or whatever. (If you want to be nice to the postal workers, see if you can sneak in "P.O. Box 522" -- my postmistress has asked a few times to please try to use my PO box, and I'd love to, but so, so many dot-coms do not understand this "my PO box IS my mailing address" issue and insist on a street address or they absolutely cannot deliver, even though the damn thing is going right to my PO box. Canada Post then adds insult to injury if it's tracked by claiming, when it has landed at the PO, that delivery was attempted.)

If you are trying to keep things secret and don't want to ask them for street addresses, fire in the address of their nearest post office (trying to get the PO box on the 2nd line)...

Though I think I may be missing something. UPS or USPS boxes...? Wait, saw correction, sorry. USPS.

While the USPS might not deliver stuff to the door in very rural areas, if Canada is like the US in that regard, FedEx and UPS and every other courier manages to bring stuff to my door just fine. Unless they are somehow so thoroughly off grid that their homes literally do not have addresses, use the address; if the company uses USPS as their carrier and their PO box is with USPS, they will sort this out no problem at the post office; if the company uses FedEx or another courier service, they'll deliver to the address.

If your friends are fascinatingly thoroughly off-grid, general delivery to the local PO seems like a good option.
posted by kmennie at 5:04 PM on November 27, 2017