1

Actually, I'm getting a bit pissed off. Saturday I ordered some things from a place in Nevada and paid $20 for overnight shipping. They shipped it by Fedex and it was supposed to be delivered today.

On Sunday it said it would be delivered by 3PM, but later it changed to "by 8 PM". As I write this they've got another 10 minutes to meet that deadline.

I would have thought that someone paying extra for express delivery would get priority on delivery, but I guess not.

2 8:00 PM and they are now officially late. The online tracking now says "No estimated delivery date available at this time." grumble

3 Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Los Angeles was (and might still be) shut down due to a bridge washing out, and Interstate 15 (which would be the obvious way to detour up to I-80) over the Cajon pass was also closed down due to fire.  I can imagine that throwing a bit of a wrench into shipping all over the west coast right now.

4 I had something like that happen with an Amazon Prime shipment last year.   

Though, rather than "No estimate" it changed to "Damaged in transit, returning to sender".  It wasn't a particularly fragile item, so I think the UPS truck got in a pile-up somewhere.

After business hours, of course, so "2 day" delivery for the replacement was 3 days, plus the weekend... so my original 2-day order took a week to deliver.

Amazon did get the return, eventually, so I assume the UPS driver was ok.  It was hard to be grumbly about that one, though, not knowing exactly what happened...

5

I doubt that bridge was involved. The package tracking said it went to Memphis, and was at Portland at 3AM today.

In other words, if there's a problem it was local.

6 I was thinking more in terms of most of the big centers on the west coast scrambling to reroute stuff, which will affect packages all over.  But if it was at the local shipping center on time and didn't make it to you, that's just a local failure.  Of course it's still possible that the people that would have been doing local things got called into the bigger cluster, but I'd still consider that a failure if they can't do that cleanly.

7 One of the first big impression of American long-haul transportation for me was the prevalence of roll-on-roll-off. Schneider is very aggressive in this mode, but FedEx Freight (former Viking) and other single-axle trailer companies do it. It was pushed quite hard in USSR, but never caught on. In fact, Russians uses to use a large amount of small shipping containers, about 10ft format if not smaller, which would be considered an LTL (Less Than truckLoad) in U.S. and typically gone on a pallet. Hopefuly it's changing now. Still, the companies like Schneider can ship quite a bit using the railroad. I'm just not sure UPS is flexible enough to use the railroad in case of a bridge washout.

8 In my many, many dealings with FedEx, both personal and (particularly) professional, it was a rare day indeed when a shipment was delayed due to problems on their end.

Oh, to be sure, a hurricane or heavy snowfall on the east coast could throw a spanner into the works, but it's not their fault that an airplane can't fly in 100mph winds, or trucks can't drive with a foot of snow on the roads.  But that actually doesn't happen all that often, and when it does?  It's usually only a day's disruption.

Usually if there was a delay in getting boxes of textbooks, it was on the publisher's end, not FedEx or UPS.

9

It looks like my box is being treated as normal traffic, not as overnight. It reached the Portland sorting center Sunday evening, and rotted there yesterday. The online tracking says it reached the Lake Oswego office at 7 this morning. I think that's too late to get onto a truck for delivery (and anyway, the tracking system would say if it was on a truck), so it'll probably get delivered tomorrow.

This looks like a simple sorting error. From Nevada to Portland it was treated as overnight (which is why it went through Memphis) but someone at the Portland sorting center tossed it in the "normal" basket instead of the "express" basket, and it's been in turtle mode ever since.

10 Sorry to hear that, which has to be infuriating with the premium price you paid to have it overnighted.  If it didn't hit the local station until a couple hours ago, there's a very slim, but unlikely shot it arrives today.  Before trucks are dispatched for the day, there's one last pass to catch the "oh s--ts" and late arrivals that didn't get loaded earlier in the morning.

It's a little peculiar that it went through Memphis in the first place.  Normally, FDX overnight shipments with both a West Coast origination and destination route through its regional hub in Oakland rather than go to Memphis and back.  

11

I thought that all overnight deliveries went through Memphis. That way the local offices don't have to sort them. The Memphis sorting facility is built and staffed for it.

The tracking page now says my box is in a truck, so I guess I get it today after all. Sure hope so.

I'm also getting a grocery delivery today, but I'm sure that'll be fine. It's my 151st delivery from them (according to the receipts I get) and they've only been late one time.

And the driver phoned me when it became clear he couldn't make schedule, and he apologized and explained when he showed up. (One of their trucks was down that day.) I bet Fedex doesn't explain or apologize.

12 It sounds like your retailer owes you a refund of the overnight fees (or at least the overnight fees minus the standard shipping fees). You've got tracking data to prove you didn't get what you paid for.  You gave them the money for expedited shipping, so it's up to them to get the money back from the shipper.

The worst they can do is tell you to pound sand because the shipping schedule isn't "guaranteed" or some other such lawyerism. 

13 If it gets delivered today, I'll let it go. If not, I'm going to contact the retailer and let them know what happened.

14

Well, that was pretty measly. The Fedex delivery person leaned the box against my door, put my mat on top of it, and snuck away without knocking.

Anyway, I got it. And now I can take my nap.

15 Memphis is indeed the superhub, where most packages route through globally.  Indianapolis is another hub, mostly for the northeast, and surprisingly Anchorage is another.  Air freight out of Asia stops there to get cleared through customs before heading to Memphis.

Not to sidetrack, but I learned about Oakland's operations a few years ago when working with a Big Three auto manufacturer with a major parts depot in Arizona.  It was during a UAW contract year, and sickouts and slowdowns were the rule.  It was killing the outbound metrics, since numerous shipments missed the 5 PM cutoff time to be loaded for Memphis.  Trying to figure out a solution, the FDX ops manager mentioned that west coast origin/destination packages went to Oakland and plane didn't leave until 9 PM at the time.  On the tracking label, the series of two letters followed by four letters determine the hub routing.  Once I figured out which Oakland-bound codes those were, I had the junior supervisors hold back those pick tickets in favor of the earlier Memphis-bound packages, and then released those west coast tickets later in the shift.  Long story short, that corrected the on-time issue in less than a week.

16 "put my mat on top of it"
Cleverly hidden from thieves!
I had a UPS guy put something on my doorstep without knocking a couple weeks ago.  Except I was sitting ten feet away with an open window.  I went out to get it, saw it was for another apartment, and hoofed it over to him to give it back before he got in his truck.  Second time that week he'd left something for the other end of my building.

17 Had a UPS guy leave a box on my front porch once, that was clearly labeled "must sign". I was kind of irate about it, it was my Calico carbine coming back from a warantee repair. Sat there on the front porch all day, in plain sight.
Good thing I lived in a good rural neighborhood.

18 Outside my front door, I have two columns, a bench, large planters filled with four-foot-high bamboo plants, and a rather large grill, any of which would hide reasonably-sized boxes from the street, and yet I keep finding them tucked behind the bushes, next to a sprinkler head. Fortunately I have the sprinklers set to go off very late at night, and only once a week.

This is of course why I have most deliveries sent to my office.

-j

19

Not to defend your retailer or FedEx, however, FedEx Air services (Overnight and 2nd Day Air) is always counted in M-F business days. Large e-tailers build their shipping hubs near FedEx facilities, but even if FedEx accepts a package over a weekend into their system (or more likely, it's scanned and loaded into a trailer) they will always stick to the 'business day' delivery schedule. FX 2nd day shipped on Wed will arrive Friday. Shipped on Thur will arrive on Monday (unless the extra fee is paid for Saturday delivery). In this way air service is actually sometimes slower than local ground delivery if the recipient is in a 1 day zone. So an order placed on Saturday via FX Overnight shipping, even if the shipper places the parcel into the system over the weekend, should be expected for delivery the following Tuesday, as that is the 'next business day' after Monday (the first business day after shipment) according to FedEx's air delivery schedule. Tuesday delivery would be correct for a parcel if the order was placed Saturday via overnight shipping.

Also, most FX air parcels, regardless of origination, still get sorted thru the superhub in Memphis. If I ship a FX Air Parcel across the street, it will still probably go to Memphis and back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xEczrGIy08

20

I'm aware of that. I entered the order last Friday evening. The retailer shipped it last Saturday, by "next day" delivery. So it was scheduled to be delivered yesterday, Monday. The package went to Memphis sorting center on Sunday and then reached the Portland sorting center Sunday evening. In the past when I've had packages doing that, the package reaches the local truck barn in Lake Oswego by about 3 AM the next morning and gets put onto a truck for delivery that day.

That's what should have happened this time, too. Instead, my package spent a day at the Portland sorting center, and reached the Lake Oswego truck barn this morning (Tuesday).