I am lucky to live in a place with frequent mail delivery and a mailbox just outside my home. I do try to register as soon as I get the cards, but sometimes I have to register in batches if they end up arriving all on the same day. This is why I do get slightly annoyed by messages asking me about registering their cards. I think it’s fairly obvious from my track record that I do this right away.
I usually register my postcards on the day I receive them, but sometimes I end up registering them a day or two later because of these reasons:
- I’m too busy and caught up with work
- I need time to decipher the message (some handwritings are harder to read)
- I would like to compose a more proper ‘thank you’ message
- I am replying in a language other than English
I try not to delay, because likewise I hope others will register mine asap too. But as the other Postcrossers have already pointed out in this thread, some Postcrossers just do not have Internet access and/or a proper mailbox.
I once drew an address where the Postcrosser mentioned that she does not have a proper mailbox and the postcards are sent to her grandma’s apartment which she visits every weekend. Hence, she will register the postcards on the weekend
My inlaws live in a farm and need to drive on country roads for 25-30 min to get to the nearest post office, where they have a PO Box. During harvest, they work from 5 am to 9 pm, so I’d be surprised if they go to the post office even once a week. During winter, if there’s snowfall, the country road that leads to their farm takes a while to be cleared (sometimes days). If there are postcrossers living in the country in similar conditions as my inlaws, I wouldn’t be surprised if they only got their mail once a week or sometimes not even that frequently
Also, their Internet connection is horrendous, so I can totally see someone with a connection like theirs typing “thank you, have a nice day” and clicking “send” as soon as they can, while crossing their fingers that the connection isn’t lost. One of the downsides of rural and remote living
I get few cards (I’m new so not sending a whole bunch and postal service is super slow) so I register each one as soon as I receive it. I have a couple of expired postcards sent to users who haven’t logged in almost a month and one of them hasn’t registered cards in over 2 months so this is frustrating… but part of the game I guess.
I don’t mind most delays, life happens to us all.
I am however dreading the day I receive all my due cards. I went inactive at the start of the pandemic and haven’t decided yet when I will be able to face the cards. Being from a rarer country, each due card may well become several. Will I receive a hundred in one week? Maybe even more?
Probably…
I was inactive for 4 months at some point and on return I received, if I remember correctly, 58 in one month. Some days I had 9-10 on the same day. That was too much for me. Of course I promptly registered them all, but I didn’t find it as fun as when I receive 1-2 every few (or several) days.
I register cards the same day they are received. There was only one exception to this because I was super busy with my husband’s health issues. I can understand about people with PO boxes who can’t get to the post office every day. We all just do the best we can.
I live in a large city with reliable mail service and my post box is only a few feet from my house. Even when I visit it daily, often there are days with no postcards and then days with many postcards. I guess postcards maybe get in a different mail stream than other mail. So if you look at my profile I registered several cards on one day not because I was waiting on purpose but because that’s how they arrived to me.
Me too
I was inactive for a month and ended up with lots arriving on the same days. My registration pattern must look really odd and it wasn’t so much fun as receiving one card. Hopefully that is behind me now.
This is honestly my favourite comment on the site so far
on the day I recieve
I have noticed that several of the people I have sent postcards to, seem to wait until they have a large stack received and then register them all at once. Like once a month. As someone who can only at this time have 7 cards traveling at once, is it really that difficult to register them say, twice a week? It seems like an unnecessary delay to me. I’m curious why they do it this way. Maybe because I am a newbie, it is still exciting to me, and I can’t wait to register each card I receive and thank the person for sending it. Is it just me or is this normal for Postcrossing?
@GrammieSuz maybe they receive all of the postcards in the same day. At least, that’s what happen to me. Due to the pandemic and the lack of postal workers, I only receive mail twice a month and that’s why I register a large stack of postcards at the same time.
Thanks for explaining. I was wondering.
Something similar happens to me, too: my mailbox will be lonely and sad for most days of the week and then one day I’ll find 6 or more postcards, all together! I register the official ones and send thank you messages for the tags and swaps, but it would really make my life easier if I could receive the cards spread out over more days *sighs*
I felt the same… when one of the first 5 postcards sent got expired… the postcrosser I sent the card to, had not registered a single card in 3 months after I sent it… Also, from her previous received cards – cards were getting registered in bulk only at the end of the month!
It was so frustrating because I wanted to send more cards… it took up the slot for 90 days and then became my first expired card…
I register direkt when i find post cards when they are in my mailbox, from monday to friday , it takes a minute to do it
I don’t care if people register or not postcards all at once, especially because I don’t know how their countries’ postal service works, if they deliver mail everyday or once in a while. The only thing that matters to me is that they eventually receive what I sent and register it when it’s possible. Sadly I have 4 expired postcards at the moment: 3 of them were sent to members in USA and 1 to a member in China. One of those people haven’t login for 5 months.
My stats look like that at the moment, but that is how I have received my cards. For example one of my travelling cards was received on the 11th and another 12th and these two cards have released my address to the pool at least 8 times. And I have received these cards on Monday and Wednesday.
One of my people I mailed a card to on September 2nd. She lives in my country. I noticed she entered about a dozen cards on September 3rd. and none since then. And previous to that she entered a lot of cards in early August, so it looks like she only enters cards once per month.