The University’s retail shipping store has shifted in floor location and room space – and not without difficulty.

Mailing and postage services once offered by Stamper’s Mail and Copy Center in Room 227 of the student union have moved to the back of Falcon Outfitters, where package pickup takes place for much of the school year.

The center, which works in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service, offers shipping and receiving mail services. Packages and envelopes can be sent through Stamper’s and large or packaged goods addressed to on-campus University students are processed through the service.

Though the store has been relocated to Falcon Outfitter’s package pick-up area, Stamper’s is currently distributing packages and large mail out of Room 228 of the student union. The University website says this location change occurs so employees can better handle large amount of mail sent in the semester-starting months of August, September and January.

Sophomore business management major Dillon Belcher recently utilized this off-site mail distribution resource. He said there had been a “little bit of confusion” about aspects of the process, but that he got his package in the end and he was content with the services offered there. He noted employee’s politeness.

Stamper’s also offered printing services while it had its own room in the union, but Falcon Outfitters now offers similar services by itself.

Not all Stamper’s features have been carried over to its new location, however.

One change is the removal of a service desk specifically staffed with Stamper’s employees. Though an employee is assigned to accept payments for orders at a cash register in the back of Outfitters and get packages to their proper places, some customers feel this arrangement is not enough.

“There’s not people here,” Michael Milhim, a senior journalism major said. He said he was frustrated about the lack of the service desk’s employees, and that he barely interacted with those in the first floor location.

“Shipping is kind of complicated, so it helped having a person,” Milhim said. He said the service desk in the past could be there to help him properly determine the class sizes of items he wanted to send out. 

Belcher, who mentioned he would likely use the service to send out possible mail in the future, was also not confident in his ability to know the processes for correct package shipment. “(I) don’t believe I would know how to do it,” he said.

Instead of service desk employees, a computer with an explanatory program and posters now placed around the self-packing desk answer questions about class sizes and pricing. 

Employees of the service were also surprised about the changes brought about by the move. 

“When I came back … I was completely shocked,” Sophomore graphic design major Emma Poorman said. 

Poorman, who is in charge of managing the shipment and pickup of online orders from University students, said returning to work after summer was much different than it had been the semester before.

She said another aspect increasing the surprise of the changes was a lack of training around them. She said instruction was on a “learn as you go” model.

One major change behind the scenes was the termination of some positions at the outlet. Poorman said the outlet only sought employees for its supplies and shipping and receiving departments, that service jobs did not follow the move and resulted in the loss of a “handful of people” from the company.

Another difference in services between locations: Stamper’s no longer accepts orders from FedEx. Though the store still cooperates with UPS Inc. through managing shipments completed by that company, FedEx services are no longer offered there.

Reasons for the change in location were uncertain, Poorman said. She said she did not receive an official word about the fate of the previous location, only hearing rumors.

Though the store has officially left its old room, however, Poorman said certain Stamper’s services are only offered through that location. She mentioned that the room holds packages that have not reached their proper locations or are otherwise not placed within the package pickup area. 

Poorman said an employee recently had to receive a shipment of music supplies from the room for a student that had not been included with the main bulk of packages to be distributed.

Though central services once offered through Stamper’s in its old location are still offered in its new one, certain differences have left people discontented.

“Put it in a place with actual employees,” Milhim said about future changes he would like to see in the store, “not just a computer.” 

Poorman said she wanted the outlet and her work to “Go back to Stamper’s.”