Shipping Options in the Age of COVID

This new world probably isn't going back to where it was. There will be much more online ordering and shipping. That said, I will state my $0.02 worth on methods:

USPS: Better than they used to be; I'm actually confident in their service and promises.

UPS: Awesome as always. Haven't had an exception yet, although I'm sure they occur.

DHL: Once. Okay, it worked. Nothing bad to say.

OnTrac: Their drivers must break anything more fragile than an anvil. Holy Carp!!!

FedEx: They need to go out of business. Like, yesterday. They're batting 0 for 3...

Chime in with your ratings/observations/curses.

 

Chiming in this should be in the Free Zone...

However...
USPS has a done a good job.

UPS as much as I despise Unions, they do a great job.

DHL no input.

OnTrac has done a great job.

FedEx is a joke.

 

They all suck right now (slowed service) due to the pandemic. But I wouldn't hold that against them.

 

Slowed service due to more than double the normal volume but yeah, pandemic related.

We're still heavy but at least we're able to keep up for the most part.

 

USPS is about to change drastically and intentionally - and not for the better. Maybe not for parcels, but for flats. I'll let you all figure out why.

 

I've seen the mountains you have to tackle at work. I'd like to buy you a beer.

 

Unless it's Florida...

 

Ordered some brake pads from a seller in Taiwan. Great price. Slow shipping. Probably on a ship. 20 days via Taiwan Post.

 

That's faster than I ever made it across the Pacific.

 

A bike shipped on Central
Oregon trucking, Vermont to OC on a dedicated truck. It fit in this crate all nice packed and wrapped in plastic...I think it might arrive in good shape this week...........
Really though I haven't had problems with any of them. But Usps is the best price. Priority shipping FTW.

 

Fedex, what can I say about them. They took 2.5 weeks to deliver a package from Buena Park to Anaheim. I literally could have walked and made it 90% less time.

 

Wait, did you do a thing? Did I miss it?

 

I didn't buy a bike, but my friend did.
The Pres of the company i work for had a Scott Addict road bike for sale, and as luck would have it a good friend wants to dip his toes into road riding. Top level bike with a low cost of entry. Win Win.

Its on the truck as shipping fedex is $260 to here, so put it on a clients truck along with a load. Ships for free this way..
But the packing is over the top but needed as its open air flat bed for the trip.

 

Nice slabs too. Carrara?

 

I'm surprised people seem to be having trouble with Fedex. The various companies I've worked for over the last 20 yrs have all used Fedex as primary shipper and I can only recall a handful of issues in that time. Same with UPS and USPS.

At one point we tried changing to DHL on the promise of much cheaper rates. Not only could they not deliver anything on time, or sometimes at all, they couldn't even deliver the rates promised.

Now that Jenson uses OnTrac I've had plenty of experience with them, about half of which are not good. I live in a townhome complex and often have to go out and search neighbors' doorsteps for my package once I get delivery notification. Not sure why they think it is acceptable to drop it at unit #89 or #93 when the package says #92. Am I asking too much? Often times they walk past my door to get to the wrong one.

Have also had the same wrong door delivery issue a lot with Amazon. If the shipping wasn't free I'd try to buy more stuff elsewhere.


Interested to hear what some of the issues are you all are having. IMO gotta give somewhat of a pass on reasonable delivery delays given current volumes. But not dropping something at the wrong place.

 

Seems as though Amazon and UPS are promoting a "get to know your neighbor" program in my condos since they don't seem compelled to deliver to the exact address, but get "close enough". Can't complain too much as the designers of the property didn't do a great job of making finding an address easy.

 

This is all American material!
Olympian White, imperial Danby Etc.
Much whiter than Carrara, but here on the west coast it doesn't have the same name recognition as Carrara.

 

UPS, FedEx, Amazon, & DHL have all been great for me. USPS is very slow at times. I have a fairly long driveway from the curb to my front door and OnTrac is the only company that will sometimes refuse to go further than halfway. They will leave the packages at the midpoint near a column more often than not.

 

I don't have any problem at all acknowledging a slowing in deliveries, as long as it's reasonably close to what they say. My issue with FedEx is they're consistently inconsistent, and their tracking system is useless unless everything goes exactly right. Their customer "service" isn't, because I can't initiate a trace. Here's just one example (Note the dates...and they say it'll be here by end of day today, but...) It's supposed to be coming to Anaheim:


This one's even funnier, if it wasn't so stupid; currently says :

 

On Trac is the absolute worst delivery service in the history of mankind. They are always late, they've shipped packages the 200 miles the wrong direction from Jenson instead of 40 miles south. Worse, I've had them on more than one occasion jut leave packages in plain view on the driveway rather that walking the package and extra 25-30 feet to the door. If I had a problem with anybody else lately, it's definitely UPS. I get the updates saying my package will be here on a certain day, on the day it's supposed to arrive the tracking info just disappears and then 2-3 days later, it gets delivered....by USPS.

 

On-Trac is the only one that could consistently make my house in the OC shake. A heavy package launched from a moving vehicle will do that if it hits the front door just right.