The United Postal Service strike may be impeding the delivery of goods nationwide, but for the most part, Hanover businesses and the College have not encountered severe problems in sending or receiving packages.
The hardest-hit business so far is the Computer Store in the Kiewit Computation Center.
Computer Store Sales Assistant Timothy Hozier said the UPS strike has caused "quite a bit of distress."
The Computer store ordered many products on the Friday before the strike was announced. When the strike began on Monday, many "products got stuck in transit," he said.
However, Hozier said other package delivery systems are providing the Computer Store with "equal or better service."
With the exception of Apple products, almost everything the Computer Store stocks is being affected by the strike, he said.
"One of the nice things about Apple is that they have their own separate contract with a shipping company," he said, which also means there will be no delay in delivering the freshman computer packages.
In order to deal with the problem of delayed items, the Computer Store has asked its vendors to start shipping products via Federal Express. "Fed Ex is having a hard time keeping up, but they are doing a good job for us," Hozier said.
Because many of the products are currently out of stock, business has slowed down at the Computer Store. "This time of year is usually when we are at a lull to begin with," he said. But "it is a little worse than it usually is."
In the meantime, the United States Postal Service is striving to fill the gap left by the UPS strike.
U.S. Postal Service District Manager Winnifred Groux said the Postal Service is evaluating its needs "on a day-to-day basis."
In order to deal with a larger volume of packages, the Postal Service is now delivering packages on Sundays, but only out of post offices where it looks as if Monday's shipping load will be especially heavy, she said.
In addition to Sunday package delivery, the Postal Service is sending out mail carriers in the morning and early evening to deliver parcels to residential neighborhoods, Groux said.
"We are trying not to disrupt first-class letter service," she said. "All decisions are being made on an office-by-office and route-by-route basis."
The Postal Service is not stretched to is capacity limits yet, Groux said. "We have room for more priority parcels."
For those customers who want to ship five or more parcels, they must call a special number to determine the appropriate location to bring their packages to be shipped.
"We are not accustomed to carrying such a large volume of packages," she said. "We don't have the infrastructure for those kinds of volumes" in each post office.
Hanover Hardware, an authorized UPS shipper, entered into a contract with the College several months ago allowing them to handle the shipping home of student goods, General Manager Michael Campbell said
Campbell said he wants students to understand that Hanover Hardware will still pick up their packages at the end of the term and will hold them until the strike comes to an end.
"The day the strike is over we will deliver them to UPS ourselves," he said.
Campbell said the UPS shipping portion of the hardware store is closed down, but the rest of the store is not suffering from the strike. "Most of our stuff comes from the True Value Hardware warehouse in Manchester," he said. "They have their own fleet of trucks."
So far the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has been faring well under the UPS strike, according to George Packard, spokesperson for the Office of Public Affairs and Marketing.
Packard said the DHMC is apparently not seeing any problems yet in terms of supply.
"We have run out of nothing unexpectedly because of the strike," he said. In addition, the DHMC has not had to increase the use of Federal Express, which is one of the more expensive alternatives to UPS.
On a normal day, the DHMC receives up to 180 shipments from UPS but is currently down to only 11 to 20 shipments a day, he said. The DHMC is "gearing up" for the week ahead, he said.
Dartmouth Bookstore Manager Dave Cioffi said the bookstore is "not as bad off as a lot of people."
The American Booksellers Association, of which The Dartmouth Bookstore is a member, signed an agreement with Roadway Packages Systems several years ago so many of their parcels are being delivered by that company.
Some of the publishers with which The Bookstore does business do not have RPS in their areas so "we are having to go through all sorts of hoops to get our stuff back to normal," he said.
In addition, The Bookstore does mail-order business with people living outside Hanover. Normally The Bookstore sends books to customers outside of New Hampshire and Vermont via UPS. Now the books are sent by priority mail from the U.S. Postal Service, he said.
Cioffi said The Bookstore is doing everything it can to get the Fall term textbooks in time for the term opening.
"It is when people submit late orders that we will be in trouble," he said. "If someone were to come to us now and want us to come through for the beginning of the term, the chances of the books being here on time is marginal."
"This is a situation that is going to require a lot of patience on everyone's part," Cioffi said. "I don't think anyone realized what a stranglehold UPS has on small package service and I think the strike is putting the spotlight on it."
