Edit: Seeing as the resounding answer seems to be a very loud “No”, no more responses are needed for this suggestion. Thanks.
With raising stamp and postcard costs, would it be possible for the developer team to add a preference where we only send (and receive?) postcards from our own country? I know for other countries it’s also getting incredibly expensive to send mail, even something as small as a postcard. And that cost can triple (or more) when sending it internationally.
I enjoy sending Postcards, but find that I’m sending less and less because of the costs of International mail. And while there’s always the option for direct swaps or trades, I find it hard to keep track and make sure I receive my card when doing more than one to two trades at a time. This shouldn’t be the only suggestion for those who want to send within their our borders.
I recently had a fellow Postcrossing buddy that pulled 15 addresses - 1 USA, and 14 International. That is USD$21.00 worth of postage. And there was no way to know what countries she would get before pulling the addresses.
Anyone else interested in a feature like this? Is this a possiblity?
Example of postage prices:
USPS (USA): domestic postcard is 51 cents (USD$0.51) and international letter/postcard prices are USD$1.50 (that’s the cost of 3 postcards sent domestically!).
Royal Mail (UK): domestic 1st class £1.10, 2nd class 75p, and International letters/postcards are £2.20
No, I think that is no option.
Postcrossing is a worldwide project and you can only exclude your own country because of privacy reasons.
If you would like to send to your own country you can open a topic by yourself here in the #trades-requests-offers or you answer to trades that were opened from users from your country.
Or you take part in RRs and tags in #communities:north-america .
You can make an Excel or Word or… list or you take a notebook and make a handwritten list to keep track.
I think that would change the fundamental nature of Postcrossing - it is designed mostly for around the world exchanges & I think you’re aware you have to the option to receive some addresses from your own country.
I can’t imagine the whole system could work like that including the algorithm.
And you don’t need a complicated list to keep track of trades - I literally keep a list like this: Swap - Susie - susieq-Narnia - Sept 10th - sent Blue Polar bears Sept 13th
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree the prices are crazy. But everything are more expensive these days. Food, activities, housing, electricity, stamps… You could quit some of them, or you can find a way to make it cheaper. In this case, I will suggest looking at RR’s within your country/region, there are so many different themes and topics for RR’s in the forum. Also, keeping a few postcard penpals could be an idea, or private swapping within your country/region.
Here’s a screenshot of my spreadsheet, how I keep track of what I am sending. I have a similar spreadsheet for tags/private swaps I am to receive. I mark them with light green when I have sent (also write the date in case the recipient asks), and mark them with dark green when I know they have received. After a while I delete the line with the name and swap. The address I copy and paste only so I have easy access to it when I am writing the postcard. Once the postcard is written, I delete the address.
Oh, i understand you. Price became very expensive for every years. In 2017 price for international postcard was: 45 rubles, but know is 75 rubles. This very expensive for me😔 I can’t send a lot of postcards. Only 4-5 in week. Around Russia price is 19 rubles this more profitable. But i want send around world and price makes it hard to do it often😥
Limiting it is against the spirit of Postcrossing, I don’t want that.
If the cost is too high, you can send fewer cards. Regardless of the cost, I don’t send many postcards because I put a lot of effort into each one, choosing the design, the stamp, and writing the text. Each card is unique.
there’s no button that says ‘request 15 addresses’ though. you can stop writing cards at any moment, nobody is making you spent money you don’t have.
some people treat postcrossing like it’s a sport. i don’t know how fast you all write but even on a day i’m home and spending most of my time with cards i ‘only’ sent out 5 or maybe 6 cards. quality over quantity and all that.
Please read my comment again. It was not meant as a negative comment, but rather a helpful input.
If you still perceive my comment as negative after you read it again, then I would very much like to know what was negative about it so I can improve. English is not my first language. Thank you.
But you asked if anybody else would be interested in a feature like that. And so far the majority’s answer is “No”. That’s a perfectly legitimate answer to the question, don’t you think?
There are a few ways you could make it cheaper for yourself.
Since you are from one of the most active countries, if you turn on sending within your own country (which I understand you already did, but generally speaking) and if you enable this in your Preferences:
Check if you prefer to have several postcards traveling to the same country at the same time.
You will see that most of your cards will only ever go to the US and Germany.
There are also time intervals when certain countries are more likely to be drawn, depending on the home country of the majority of active users (logged in and drawing cards) at that time.
I don’t think it’s possible to have this as an option for everybody, though. Regardless of its fairness, it would simply not work for users outside the top 5, max 10 countries. For the large majority of countries taking part in postcrossing, there are simply not enough users to ensure this.
In Romania, which is not exactly rare, there are only 66 other users that have logged in in the past month and that live in a different city than me. And not all of them are due cards at the moment. If that was my whole selection pool I’d go through it in a month.
And speaking of fairness: how do you see this? Should users that only send within their own country be allowed to ever receive cards from outside their country?
I feel you. The cost for international post is double the price for donestic post in UK. Perhaps you could search for stamps with discount? I found a shop for discounted UK stamps from a thread on this forum (but of course read user reviews to make sure the shop you find is legit )
I agree, postage costs are insane most places, but no one is forcing you to send postcards you can’t afford to send. Make sure you have ‘send to own country’ checked as that will help. Beyond that, just make a budget and stick to it.
Maybe as an alternative, they can participate in the USA tags (in the North America regional subforum) instead? Then when they feel like they can afford intl postage, they can request an address through Postcrossing proper?
Also make sure the options for receiving mail in your own country and allowing repeat countries is enabled. That will increase the chances of getting multiple US addresses in a row… or you might end up with 7 Germany’s in a row instead
I agree with most everyone here that changing this would fundamentally change Postcrossing in to something that’s less-than. But yeah definitely don’t press that button unless you’re ready to pay international postage.
I agree with you. It would be nice to have an option to send within your own country. I like the idea of sending and receiving cards internationally as well as domestically but the reality is with inflation in our country on everything, budgets are tighter for most people and it would be better, in my opinion, to be able to have that option at times.
I found lots of vintage, unused, US postage stamps on eBay and that not only is a way to send some really interesting stamps, it is a significant cost break! The only issue I have is that it takes a lot of room to use multiple lower denomination stamps to add up to the postage needed internationally. Just an idea!
Given that you’re new to Postcrossing, you may not know that you can have the option to receive some addresses & some cards from your own country for your official cards.
On the main site, click on the Settings link next to your avatar (in the upper right corner of the page) & under the Profile tab you can check the box that says:
“Check if you would like to also send and receive postcards to and from your own country.
This option can be changed only once every 60 days.”
You can also do lots of trades, tags or other games here on the Forum by region or country if you want to. Lots of options here.
I don’t know if this will help, but there’s also Facebook. Before coming to Postcrossing, I was doing all of my postcards swaps by joining postcard groups on Facebook. There you can make a post asking for blind swaps, or post pictures of what you have available to swap and what you want or are looking for and you can then pick what you want from the other person and request proof prior to sending. But again, it comes down to keeping track of it all yourself. I still do the occasional FB swap and when I do, I just write down how many I’m expecting and from who along with the date on a sticky note that I keep on one of my dresser doors.
It’s not Postcrossing, but you will be able to pick whether you just want to do US swaps or International swaps.
)