Elimination Of Form 400 (Tracking Label)

Just learned that the USPS eliminated form 400 (the tracking label) last month. A new form, 888, is apparently only available to commercial customers (from their meter provider).

The upshot is, so far as I can tell, that is now impossible to mail a tracked package using stamps without going over the post office counter for each item. How many of us can do that?

Guess I will jealously guard my remaining small quantity of labels....too bad that I have a whole stack of jenny sheets that I now will have minimal use for (until the first class global rate goes to $2, I guess).

If you search Google, you can find places to order the new Forms 888. The forms themselves are free, but you may have to pay for shipping.

Thanks for posting this; I had no idea that Form 400 was being obsoleted. Apparently neither does my local USPS branch, as I've been using them all month.

I appreciate the post also, I didn't know the Form 400 has been phased out.

Surprisingly, I was able to get a partial pad of Form 400 at my local PO today (they had no idea it was being discontinued either).

My limited attempts to get Form 888 have not yet met with success. Pitney Bowes, for example, has the labels, but you need a commercial account number to be able to log in to actually order them.

This may be a dumb question, but what does form 400 do?

Now, apparently, nothing.

(That said, my brother just mailed something to Paris in full ignorance of this change, and his ignorance was shared with his postmaster, so...we'll see.)

Correction

What WAS Form 400 for?

Bob

Bob - It was/is a tracking label that you could apply yourself.

Thanks, rogdcam and Revenue Collector.

I think they still actually work in the mailstream if you send anything (I haven't had any problem with any that I've sent); my guess is that they will actually work for some time to come; they will just get hard to find.

The best use for them now for me is when a buyer purchases multiple items but pays for them in separate transactions - if you buy a label from ebay you don't get credit for shipping the others with tracking (it won't accept the tracking number even if you put it in manually)....but if you use your own it will accept the tracking number for all items. Odd how it works.

About 3 days after it was announced, the change got delayed because the Forms 888 aren't actually available yet:

https://link.usps.com/2023/01/20/change-delayed/

I've not seen anything subsequent to this announcement, nor have I seen actual Forms 888 being used. For the time being I'm continuing to use Form 400.




I use them for parcels as I sell a lot of media mail items on ebay and have a crap-ton of postage to use. The Form 400 allows me to enter tracking numbers into ebay at the time I pack, as opposed to having to come back and enter them after the fact once the USPS generates tracking numbers. It's a much more efficient workflow for me.

I also am a long time seller on ebay and use stamps for postage along with electronic postage and a label 400 for tracking. This will put a stop to this process if I can't find a source for the new label 888 If anyone comes up with a source for the new label 888 in the future would appreciate a head's up. Thanks

I guess I have 100 of the 400's. Any market for them ?

Subscribing to around 15 APS circuits, a while ago I ordered a mountain of small Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes and a bunch of pads of the 400's gratis off of the USPS website. This way I'd always have them on hand and wouldn't have to sweat delaying a mailing.
I've sent out several circuits since the change was announced without any issues (other than the "usual" where tracking showed one recently mailed circuit, going from NY State to adjacent Pennsylvania, that took a short side trip to...Oregon...).

I know this topic has been dormant for awhile, but wanted to ask if anyone knows how to get more
of the Form 400 labels.....we have a mailing specialist company apply the postage to our packages,
so we use the 400 labels to track our items before sending them out for processing....the local P.O.
has given out all the labels that they had in stock....thanks for any help on this....