a couple years ago I got a PO box at the UPS Store. i wasn't sure it would be useful at first until i realized how they work.
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they are not obviously PO boxes. there are some services that won't ship to a PO box, or that can't accept the right address format for one. UPS gives you a "suite number" which, generally speaking, nobody can identify as anything other than a business
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packages do not have to fit in your box. you can get the smallest one they offer, because they just stick whatever doesn't fit on a shelf and put a claim tag in your box.
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your packages are guaranteed to get delivered; you will never get a bullshit "nobody was home :)" message ever again, because people are paid to be there 8am-8pm.
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nothing can ever get stolen unless a store employee does it, and they're under surveillance all day.
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you can leave a package there indefinitely if you aren't available to collect it right away
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you get an email whenever a package is received with the tracking number that was on it
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if you're getting stuff that does fit in the box, you can go in after hours with a key to retrieve it. so if you're expecting important documents or a check or something, you can have it sent there and pick it up at midnight if need be.
so in short, if you have ~$30/mo. to spare (it might be more or less at your local store), this will put an absolute end to package theft, or expensive stuff being left on your doorstep without your knowledge. you can be out of town for a week and anything you've ordered will be safe until you return, and you'll even be able to tell that it was delivered safely from afar.
"surely there's a limit to how large a package they'll accept" there is not. i once saw a guy get an air conditioner delivered there. no, not a window air conditioner, a full size outside compressor with hoses and ductless units. it sat in the store for two weeks while he negotiated a return due to shipping damage. a couple weeks ago i went in and saw that someone had received freight. there was an entire wooden pallet stacked seven feet tall with boxed pottery, and it sat there for two days. i had someone send me 50 pounds of laptops literally in an action packer, yes, like the dildo joke i made on twitter. so i can promise, you will not be the most irritating customer they have.
As someone who worked at a UPS Store (at least until, uh, last month), I'd just like to point out an odd thing - we legally can't call them PO Boxes, because that stands for "post office box" and we aren't the post office. I don't know why they're that picky, I've never seen a registered trademark symbol next to the words "PO Box" but apparently it's just one of those totally bizarre rules like how nobody but the USPS is allowed to put anything in your house's mailbox, even though it's your property and not the post office's...
Funny enough, at the store I worked the "send email to the customer when checking in a package" feature worked, like, 50% of the time, and if it failed, there was no obvious reason or traceable bug, not even an option to try again, it just Fails. Sorry, this software that hasn't been updated in 3 years doesn't like your email address, oh well. The same software is also supposed to theoretically support sending SMS text message notifications, but that simply never worked in the time I was there and I don't know if it ever did. Also, to make things even better, the mailbox renewal notices are tied into the exact same piece of software, so if you inexplicably couldn't receive package notification emails, you'd also never receive renewal notices (we solved this by putting printed notices in your mailbox, because duh).
We actually did occasionally have issues of accidentally giving someone the wrong package, but that was always down to human error. 221 wants their package, but you mistakenly grabbed 212's and neither of you double-check because there's a line out the door. Fortunately though, we're required to always have up-to-date contact information for every mailbox holder, so those issues are usually resolved pretty quickly.
The reason USPS PO Boxes can't receive from any carrier besides USPS is because USPS are a bunch of stodgy old bastards who don't want anything to do with your package if it's not making them money directly - even though you're already paying for the PO Box (which are usually more expensive than UPS Store mailboxes), so that doesn't even make sense, but they will RTS any UPS or FedEx envelope or box, which makes them practically useless, since a lot of the time in modern ecommerce it's impossible to tell if the people you're ordering from will use USPS or not. At the very least, UPS and FedEx's software and APIs will explicitly refuse to create a shipping label going to a PO Box - this came up a lot for our shipping customers, they'd bring in something to send and give us a PO Box address and we'd have to tell them to go the post office. Some of them refused to believe us, because customer service is hell.
if you're getting stuff that does fit in the box, you can go in after hours with a key to retrieve it. so if you're expecting important documents or a check or something, you can have it sent there and pick it up at midnight if need be.
This is not universal. This is also theoretically possible with USPS post offices, but is again, not universal. In my town, the USPS leaves its front doors unlocked 24/7 for PO Box customers, and just pulls down a big metal gate over the clerk area off-hours, yet our UPS Store is a tiny little retail space that couldn't reasonably invest in a large enough metal gate for this same sort of design, so mailbox customers have to pick their stuff up during business hours. This would come up often and would occasionally be a dealbreaker for potential mailbox customers who would decide to go with the post office down the street just for that convenience. So, if that's important to you, always make sure to ask, as this is never consistent or required at any UPS Store or USPS office.
All of this is basically why I did not get a PO box for years, because I'd heard that the USPS ones had these incredibly weird and arcane restrictions, and also there was pretty much no information about what they would do with oversized parcels other than this vague threat that you might be asked to upgrade, which doesn't make any sense because the largest USPS PO box is too small to contain any package I will ever receive
The whole thing seemed intimidating, overpriced, and inconvenient, and so when I went over to UPS, I asked them all these questions expecting to hear the same story and they just shrugged and said, nah, we don't care about any of that. That's why I wrote the post, because there was just no information out there about this and I really didn't think it would work until I got the box and found out that it does indeed work.
