Ordered three parts Friday night. All coming from same place in Ohio. Why they are in three different boxes is beyond me, but thats what they did. All suppose to be here yesterday. 5 days from Ohio to Massachusetts??? Whatever. Anyway, I get an email yesterday saying there was a sorting error on one package. Look this morning and its in Nevada. One package is on a truck one town away ready for delivery, and the third just got to Connecticut about 10 minutes ago. So now one is due today, Thursday, one is due tomorrow and one has a due date of Friday next week.
If you get all your items your lucky. I won't ship USPS because our diver decided he needs half my packages more than I do.
FedEx and UPS combine for around 45 million packages per day, USPS is approaching 500 million pieces of mail per day. Couldn't find any numbers for Amazon's own delivery service.
FedEx and UPS, even if they hit 99.9% perfect deliveries, that's still 45,000 packages per day that end up lost/damaged/rerouted by accident.
volvoclearinghouse (Forum Supporter) said:
"Logistics"
It's like the more they use that word, the less they understand it.
Torkel
Reader
8/6/20 7:44 a.m.
A US company sent me some stuff with the (expensive!) 3-5 days shipping option on July 30. According to their track function, it hasn't even arrived in the country yet...
spitfirebill said:
volvoclearinghouse (Forum Supporter) said:
"Logistics"
It's like the more they use that word, the less they understand it.
All I want in life is a trucking company.
I ordered a book off eBay. I'm in Denver, CO, seller is one state away in Utah. Supposed to arrive tomorrow. Book got sent to IL and has been sitting there for the past three days.
How much did the order weigh? Some places have a limit on packing more than 25 lbs in one box and anything bigger than that ships by itself.
My shipping rant is not so much about the delivery, as I think packages get to where they need to go most of the time with pretty impressive speed.
My rant is that when I order stuff from online companies, shipping is cheap. When I go to ship something myself, shipping is ungodly expensive. I understand this is a "buy in bulk" issue, but holy crap does it feel like they are gouging you at the USPS counter when you need to return ship a part that cost 7.95 to ship from seller to you but is going to be 32.48 to ship back to the seller.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
it doesn't cost anything to establish a UPS account. print labels at home and drop at nearest UPS store. it's about 30% cheaper vs "retail" last time i checked.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
it doesn't cost anything to establish a UPS account. print labels at home and drop at nearest UPS store. it's about 30% cheaper vs "retail" last time i checked.
Also true for FedEx and USPS. Buying the label online and printing it is almost always cheaper AND you don't have to wait in line to drop it off as they also often provide pickup services for free.
ShipNerd gives really good pricing and setting up an account is free. Get better pricing thru them than I do with my commercial FedEx account, although I've got a really low level account with FedEx as I rarely ship stuff.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
it doesn't cost anything to establish a UPS account. print labels at home and drop at nearest UPS store. it's about 30% cheaper vs "retail" last time i checked.
Yeah I did that for fedex. Still they don't beat USPS prices most of the time, even with the 'account'.Also the post office is a short walk from my house. UPS and fedex are both a 10-15 minute drive, meaning a post office trip takes 15 minutes round trip and anywhere else is more like 45.
You should have seen me that one time I shipped two tires to duster. I taped the tires together, dropped them in my kids radio flyer, and pulled it down to the post office. What? What's not normal about a regular guy pulling a wagon full of tires through the neighborhood?
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
it doesn't cost anything to establish a UPS account. print labels at home and drop at nearest UPS store. it's about 30% cheaper vs "retail" last time i checked.
Yeah I did that for fedex. Still they don't beat USPS prices most of the time, even with the 'account'.Also the post office is a short walk from my house. UPS and fedex are both a 10-15 minute drive, meaning a post office trip takes 15 minutes round trip and anywhere else is more like 45.
You should have seen me that one time I shipped two tires to duster. I taped the tires together, dropped them in my kids radio flyer, and pulled it down to the post office. What? What's not normal about a regular guy pulling a wagon full of tires through the neighborhood?
You can schedule a pickup at your home from UPS and USPS. I'm sure FedEx as well.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
it doesn't cost anything to establish a UPS account. print labels at home and drop at nearest UPS store. it's about 30% cheaper vs "retail" last time i checked.
Yeah I did that for fedex. Still they don't beat USPS prices most of the time, even with the 'account'.Also the post office is a short walk from my house. UPS and fedex are both a 10-15 minute drive, meaning a post office trip takes 15 minutes round trip and anywhere else is more like 45.
You should have seen me that one time I shipped two tires to duster. I taped the tires together, dropped them in my kids radio flyer, and pulled it down to the post office. What? What's not normal about a regular guy pulling a wagon full of tires through the neighborhood?
You're not a regular guy, so there are many things that are normal for you, that aren't for anyone else.
Signed, a guy that picked up a rocking chair from the curb while walking his dog and infant yesterday, awkwardly carrying it for a block home before listing it on Facebook Markets.
Shipping is a bit messed up right now. Some of the USPS depots are not working well because of COVID restrictions - Denver is kinda messed up. International shipping capacity has dropped because of the lack of passenger flights so small international packages are really, really slow. Volume is up because everyone is buying online.
Why is shipping cheaper when you're buying from an online vendor? It could be because they're subsidizing the apparent shipping cost because customers bitch and whine about any shipping charge more than $2. A part costs $10 and shipping costs $10, customers are happier when you charge $15 for the part and $5 for shipping. Or $20 for the part with free shipping. You're paying for it no matter what, but man does it get old when customers assume that 1) shipping employees work for free 2) packaging is free 3) everything can ship in a flat rate box for $5.95.
Why do three parts ship in three separate boxes? Maybe because it's more efficient at the warehouse end. It takes time to put things in boxes. Some warehouses will pre-pack certain items so all they need is a label and they're out the door. We changed from pulling and packing every single product to pre-packing a bunch of stuff recently and our time-to-shipment dropped from a week to same-day with fewer shipping employees, fewer errors and less need for special training.
Be patient. If you need a part for a race or something time-sensitive, order it with some extra time or man up and pay for the expedited shipping. Otherwise, just relax and remember that there are a lot of people working really hard in what might be difficult situations to get you your stuff.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I understand subsidizing the shipping cost. But I have bought things including shipping that were cheaper than I could even just ship the part. one example I once got a specific motorcycle sprocket (shipped in from Germany!) for like $22 total. No way could I ship it from here to Oregon for less than $22.
Sometimes cheaper parts are subsidized by more expensive parts.
And yes, people who ship a lot of stuff and do all the work themselves do get much better rates. We offer our customers 60% off published FedEx rates for international shipping because we've been able to negotiate a much better price than retail operations. For a retail customer, FedEx needs to do all the paperwork and have a counter open with someone staffing it. International shipments are particularly a hassle. For us, they come by with a truck and shovel packages into the back because they're already in the system and paid and tracked and weighed and have all the paperwork.
Since Covid started, 20% of my packages have been delayed (UPS mostly). I keep getting emails/texts "your package is delayed." Oh well, 1st world problems.
Do not attempt to figure out freight these days. I paid $50 cdn to ship a box full of pistons and gaskets from Sweden, which arrived in less than 72 hours. I also paid $60 cdn for an abs module that took about 264 hours from Van Nuys, California.
Both were in transit at the same time.
UPS or Fedex are not 99.9% there for me. Just got a SIM card from Louisville to Milwaukee - 9 days. used to take two. Had a sway bar delivered by a neighbor the week before last - apparently she found it in the middle of the street a couple blocks away from me. Delivery generally sucks these days, but USPS has been working well for me. No complaints with them.
Maybe its because we live in a rural area and sort of know all the delivery guys, we seem to have no issues. W print our own labels and ship from the shop (home).
I find if I order from big companies that specialize in shipping (e.g. McMaster-Carr, Summit Racing, etc.) there is never a slow delivery issue. If i order from some one man vendor on ebay, it seems to come by stagecoach. Go figure.
jwagner (Forum Supporter) said:
UPS or Fedex are not 99.9% there for me. Just got a SIM card from Louisville to Milwaukee - 9 days. used to take two. Had a sway bar delivered by a neighbor the week before last - apparently she found it in the middle of the street a couple blocks away from me. Delivery generally sucks these days, but USPS has been working well for me. No complaints with them.
Are all the carriers still using physical SIM cards?
I'm on Google Fi and the phone has a "software" SIM card.
In reply to z31maniac :
Most carriers still use SIM cards, although a lot of them can also cope with eSIMs.
