I know there have been some rants about shipping posted before but this one plus the costs has me totally puzzled. I ordered some Dremel parts from a well known hobbyist tool catalogue. Came out to 5.4 pounds of stuff and naturally I chose the cheapest shipping option also not being in a hurry to get said items I didn't wince much at the estimated 8 days delivery time. Now it turns out that the delivery folks were FedEx, certainly not my most favorite folks to have deliver a steaming pile of horse doodie much less my parts. Placed the order the first of last week and received an E-mail that the order had shipped out of Keasbey, NJ. Now my old rational mind said okay that is pretty much in a straight line from where I am and I figured the first stop would be in Baltimore where it would be sorted for delivery into the FedEx center in the metro area. Hah, wrong on that one it went to Hagerstown, MD. Not even close but way to the west of me. It gets better. Half a day later it arrives in Martinsburg, WV. Even further West from me. For whatever reason certainly unknown and baffling to me the torch gets passed to the USPS at 3 AM this morning and at 4 PM this afternoon lays awaiting Monday delivery at my local postal facility. There wasn't an option listing the USPS or I would have picked it over these clowns. No wonder that I thought the shipping costs were a little higher than norm. Somebody had to pay for all the fuel giving these parts the scenic tour. Makes me wonder If it had stayed with FedEx where it was headed to next, North Carolina, Florida, and then back up the coast to Alexandria, VA. Just for the heck of it I checked the mileage and time between point A and my location at point B. Time ranged form 3 hours 25 minutes to 4 hours 24 minutes depending on the route used. Somewhere under 300 miles. So far my package has logged about a thousand miles on the road. Good thing I had not ordered from Kato Japan with these folks delivering.
Been there, seen that. The delivery folks these days have us stuck between a rock and a hard place. None are outstanding any more, even though they'd like us to believe otherwise.
I guess FedEx has changed. I thought EVERYTHING, depending on whether it was going to next town or next state, was always rushed to one central sorting place in the middle of the country, then airlifted same night to regional distribution point. Maybe they don't do that any more. I suspect shippers use FedEx etc. even though final delivery will be made by USPS, maybe FedEx picks up with less hassle to shipper (regardless of cost) which may make it the choice. As a 3 or 4 times a month very-small package shipper, sending stuff from home, it is less hassle for me to drive to PO and leave package, than to have to wait at home all day for pickup person to come by. Just my situation.
So far the USPS has been the best as far as on time and in one piece with UPS following a close 2nd. Makes you wish for the old days when the order would make it's way down to the local freight house, get loaded on a mail storage car, or an express box, and make its way to Pot Yard to get loaded aboard the W&OD and trundle up the rails to the Falls Church station. You either picked it up there or it went into a van to the local postal facility for home delivery out from there. Unfortunately the mail is gone from the rails, Pot Yard isn't there anymore, and the rails up into Falls Church have been gone since 63 or 64 along with the station. Even my local post office has been gone now about two years. Fortunately the main post office and sorting facility is only about ten minutes drive from me so I use that.
Most of my packages from Amazon get here the same way. FedEx first, with the USPS dropping it off at the house. Never a problem, and it usually gets here on time or a day early. I've even gotten delivery on a Sunday twice!
Maybe it's a "wag the dog" scenario to fill our skies with drones buzzing overhead day and night. I look forward to having my early morning quiet coffee time filled with the humming, buzzing, robocritters flitting about. Anyone remember Hatari and the tree full of birds? Bobby
USPS is just as bad I send one from Buffalo NY. to MI. said 2 days it went to IA 2 states to far then back to MI took 4 days. not a big deal with N scale stuff but I ship live fish that I breed to and their little detores could kill them. I tried them all their all bad I go for the cheapest USPS.
USPS seems to be the best for me. Only problem I have with them is that they run all my fragile packages through the box crusher or under a bull dozer sometime during the shipping process. So far no casualties, but not for their lack of trying. The postmaster was not amused when I asked if they only routed my stuff through the crusher or if it was free of charge to all customers.
At my post office they only use packages for door stops, and during the lunch time football games for punting practice.
Any chance that the shipping option you chose was called SmartPost? Check the fine print or FAQ in the shipping section of the seller's website. SmartPost (which may be an oxymoron) is an alliance between FedEx and the USPS which uses FedEX for the majority of the distance and then hands over to USPS for the "last mile" delivery to a residential address. Martinsburg, WV is the SmartPost hub nearest to the DC area, so that would tend to confirm it.
Not trying to be smart, but... You did pick the cheapest. And yes, the cheapest some businesses choose to use, is the SmartPost... which is where FedEx and the USPS combine to deliver stuff. Nothing really goes straight point to point, and never has. There's stuff that goes all the way to the center of the country at the main hubs, then goes back out in the opposite directions to HI, or AK and other destinations. All the planes, trains and trucks run no matter what, so the mileage is irrelevant really.
Something here mentioned that was not listed in the options or described that I found, and I did linger over the shipping options to read the print. In fact considering this is the first time I have heard of this method I do agree it is an oxymoron, conceived by morons, and implement by morons, and implemented in this day when everyone is preaching fuel economy and efficiency of which neither are glaringly absent in this operation. I chose the cheaper option because the other options would have in one case almost doubled the cost of the parts and what I ordered was not for anything time sensitive. In the shipping communication a tracking number was enclosed which I used to try and figure out which day I needed to be available because my experiences with FedEx has been they don't leave packages at the door. Maybe they do where other folks are but not here. Certainly has given me an insight on why computer repair cost are so high. Most folks that have a computer down and out today are literally out in the cold until they get it back especially a small business. And with the variety in computers not all parts can be stocked. For me this was not something that was time sensitive. However it certainly explains why that the standard shipping was about three dollars more than I am used to paying. Somebody has to pay for all the wasted fuel and time in handling. And looking at the shipping record provided by the tracking this package will have been handled at least 8 times by the time it reaches me. That certainly increases the possibility that some thing could be damaged in shipping. Most of the stuff I have ordered gets handled about four times during shipping when I can track it and this is the first time I have had something take the great circle route to get to me. In the case of USPS it would have made maybe two stops to be re-classed in getting to this area. UPS has two major sorting and distributing centers within less than 20 miles of me and also have taken the most direct and efficient route and certainly less chances of damage with all the handling.
I'll drop a rant in here I need signals for my layout.. nobody in Melbourne has N scale signals! Honest. HO etc in the billions. So from USA $22.00 to buy 1 signal. $46.00 to post it! Back to normal transmission..
USPS has zone priority mail boxes and sounds to me like they could have used an "A" box, which you can send a max of 15 lbs and it's DIRT CHEAP!
Are You Shipping OR Receiving? It guess it all depends on what you are doing SHIPPING or RECEIVING? As a small time FEEBAY seller, I just sell my excess (?) N-Scale items, I use USPS PRIORITY MAIL exclusively. I will use UPS for larger items, but those sales are few and far between. The main things I like about PRIORITY MAIL is FREE BOXES, I can print my own postage (thru PayPal [and at a DISCOUNT TOO!]) and get free pick-up if I want. The only thing I have to furnish is the item being shipped and the packing materials. And I get most of my packing materials thru CRAIGSLIST, plastic peanuts, bubble wrap, packing paper is ALWAYS being offered for FREE. For one or two SMALL FLAT RATE boxes ($5.25 postage), I put them out with my outbound mail. Anything more than two, I'll take them downtown to the Post Office and drop them off in the drop box. Once they are accepted by USPS, I can track them by the tracking/shipping number. The buyer can do this too, they get a tracking number AUTOMATICALLY, when I print up the postage label. UPS does about the same thing, but they don't furnish boxes. I use UPS for bigger items sometimes. It works just about the same as USPS: pack item up, print shipping label (again thru PayPal with a discount) and then give to any UPS driver or drop off at my local UPS terminal. Never have used UPS pickup, so I can't say anything there. I worked for RPS/FedEx Ground for several years and learned on thing about shipping: ALWAYS OVERPACK A PACKAGE. A little extra packing goes a long way. When packing something up: Hold your package at arms length straight out from your body and DROP IT. If it won't survive the drop to a concrete floor, DON'T SHIP IT!! It's not packed good enough for processing at USPS, UPS, FedEx etc etc. Almost everything is MACHINE/COMPUTER sorted now. I will ship ANYPLACE/WORLDWIDE. NO PROBLEM!! 100% of the International Shipping goes via USPS. PRIORITY MAIL/EXPRESS MAIL ONLY----NO PARCEL POST it took almost 6 months to get a box shipped to Thailand, NEVER again. As for receiving: USPS outs it in the mailbox or leaves a ticket ti get the package at the Post Office.
With how this parcel traveled to hubs this was handled by FedEx Smartpost. The rates are cheaper than regular FedEx Ground rates and competitive with USPS as well. I could write a whole page or 5 on how this process works. But I won't bore you with it. I worked for the company before it was acquired by FedEx and renamed to Smartpost. I don't consider myself a moron most of the time(only when assembling Microtrains couplers). You'll have to get with their marketing folks about the name. Anyway, FedEx Ground and FedEx Smartpost operate independently unless they have changed some things and I missed it in the trade publications. I've worked in less than truckload and small package for most of my professional career. Freight does indeed move in strange ways at times. But that's the not the norm. The quirks are few and far between. It depends on the carrier and how their network is set up. Sadly, shipping charges are going up just like everything else. I cringe every time I have to order something. I try to buy locally whenever possible. I did notice you mentioned your local post office closed. I would say that's why your package was not out for delivery the day it arrived. It's interesting you mention "the old days". being in my early 50's, the only thing I remember is the city tearing down Union Station. *sigh* But from my studies of transportation, rail cars obviously travel on rails. Think of all the connecting(transloading) via how many railroads to arrive to your door. Depending on where you live and what railroad(s) are involved, that's a lotta connections being made and who knows where they were made. The more a parcel is handled, costs go up(people are expensive), the possibility of loss and damage go up(someone mentioned punting a few posts ago) There's a reason it's not done that way anymore. Yes, at times it may not seem like it though. Hang in there. It's bound to only get more interesting. Case in point, the quad copters tested by Amazon. Not sure if they are serious with that or not. Time will tell. Respectfully,
