why I hate UPS

I get a fair amount of wine shipped to me from producers and retailers. I think it might interest those on the sending side to know my take on UPS vs. FedEx. UPS ground (and I believe all UPS services, though I’m not sure on every detail) will not skip a delivery day or send the package to a different address without charging me. To not attempt delivery one day and then do so the next would cost me $6. $6 for saving them a trip? UPS’s pickup center in my area is only open from 2 to 6. FedEx is open all day. FedEx gladly reroutes packages and arranges alternate delivery days at no additional cost.

I have no affiliation with either company except that I receive packages from both and I now hate UPS. I emplore all of you who do the shipping to please use FedEx and never UPS. Perhaps others will feel differently, but I’ve had nothing but good experiences with FedEx and many bad ones with UPS. There’s my rant.

Wow. My experiences are completely the opposite. UPS will reroute for free and FedEx charges a lot.

Granted, I haven’t had wine sent home in years (I now use offsite), and for most other things, I send it to work directly, so their policies might have changed.

Easy for me. UPS won’t ship beer while Fed Ex will. I do like my UPS guy - he knows my schedule and works with me pretty well.

Most of these issues you describe are local to your area. Things are quite different here.

For example, our UPS pick-up is open from early in the morning until 9pm.

One annoying thing about FedEx is that Ground, Express, and Home are 3 different companies, that won’t talk to each other. In fact, a FedEx Ground package will not be accepted for delivery at Express, while a FedEx Ground package was accepted and held for me at the UPS Office!

I learned the hard way several years ago that FedEx Home is the worst. They’re contractors and what doesn’t get delivered stays on the truck and the drivers take the truck home after their route.

I’m fortunate that I’ve never had any issues with regular FedEx and very few with UPS. My wine shipments used to be split between both but I rarely receive wine shipments through FedEx anymore.

I did have an issue recently when UPS delayed my delivery by a day, to Friday, after I made plans to go out of town. Their policy is to make one attempt before changing anything. I thought I was screwed but then I called Wine Country Shipping and explained the dilemma. Angela at WCS was kind enough to call Pali and have them authorize a change to my shipment of The Treat so that I could pick it up at the UPS facility. That way, it didn’t sit on the truck all weekend.

What pisses me off about UPS is that they set a target date for delivery, but if
the package arrives at the receiving hub a day early… they let it sit there for a whole
day rather than delivering it a day earlier than planned. IMHO, that sucks!!!

As a retailer I used FedEx because I knew the regional wine guy and that turned out OK for me. In my new life, selling a pressurized wine preservation device that has to be shipped as Hazmat/Dangerous Goods, I began with FedEx and had to switch to UPS. Turned out that FedEx policy changed to a refusal to deliver my product to a residence. Not so with UPS. This is a product that requires a direct signature, so it’s challenging to understand the reason for the policy shift, other than the probable liability issues OR the fact that their home delivery service IS a separate entity and the DOT tracking and paperwork requirements for Hazmat are more than they want to deal with given that home delivery of Hazmat is probably much less frequent than to businesses.

Anyway… my first few weeks with UPS have really impressed me. Hazmat shipping is a bit complicated and took a couple of returned shipments to get straight, but it seems to be going smoothly now. UPS online shipping software is MUCH more complete and user-oriented than FedEx’s (once you get around to understanding it all) and every UPS person I’ve spoken with (from drivers to agents to system techs) has been extremely helpful and polite. I’m a fan now.

grouphug

when i absolutely, positively, have to have my wine club shipments drop-kicked from CA to NY, i choose FedEx. (ok, that’s an exaggeration.)

neither company is that great to work with, but i can say that for the amount of shipping i do on a daily/monthly basis, the best service comes from UPS. like others have mentioned above, UPS does charge to re-driect a package…even if the address is off by a single apartment number (i.e. “5A” vs “5B”), and they do make their share of mistakes with regard to damaged packages. though they are fairly consistent in paying claims where they are clearly at fault.

FedEx, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have their stuff together. as someone else mentioned, the three factions of FedEx are not in contact with each other, and when issues do arise, i get a lot of “We’re very sorry” but not a lot in explaniations as to why a package didn’t arrive. (i had a doozy last week, where one on of my clients called to find out where his club shipment was. according to the tracking number online, it was delivered. when i called the FedEx CSR, they confirmed delivery…in a city 3.5 hours away with the exact same address and zip code. when pressed when i asked how this was possible, and after they could not provide signature confirmation, i got the “We’ll have one of our specialists look into this for you.” six days later, and i’m still waiting for that return call. guess i won’t hold my breath.)

bottom line: UPS > FedEx, and both can benefit from better customer service, and more communication.

It’s interesting to hear other takes on this. What it comes down to for me is that FedEx has always worked with me in ways UPS refuses to do so. I guess neither is perfect, though. Dealing with a UPS headache recently had (has) me so frustrated that I wanted to vent and learn other opinions. I still hate UPS, but it’s not surprising that some don’t agree.

I’ve had generally good service from both FedEx and UPS, but UPS doesn’t arrive here until later afternoon/early evening, making sunny day wine shipments problematic. The best in that regard is FedEx Ground – they regularly deliver before 9 in the morning!

As noted already, all shipping issues and eccentricities are local; my experience might have no bearing on any else’s experience.

While working for a smaller winery I was doing the retail shipping. We went from UPS to FDX back to UPS. FDX was costing me time and money with their f’ups.

Since this seems to be the current carrier venting topic…

OK… so a couple of months have gone by and I now find that the info I got from my UPS rep was incorrect. My hazmat shipments do NOT have to be signed for. They did with FedEx, but not with UPS?

That certainly simplifies things, but raises another question: FedEx requires government mandated labeling and paperwork. In addition to that same type of paperwork, UPS requires: 1) driver signs a pick-up sheet and leaves it, 2) each package has to have a red/white candy-striped SIGNED Hazmat ‘shipping paper’ attached, 3) there are SEVEN additional copies of that shipping paper required in a similarly striped pouch, 4) UPS removes one copy of the seven at each stopping point of the shipment. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BUT doesn’t require a signature, or even anyone available to accept the package at the other end???

[scratch.gif]

Whatever happened to the USPS getting into the wine shipping business? There was talk of them jumping a couple of years ago, it would be a small but good revenue stream for them… I honestly think they could deliver faster than UPS or Fedex and cost less…

I use UPS all the time to ship and have only small complaints, the largest is that we get customers complaining about pushed/leaky corks but we try not to ship in the summer. They do nickel and dime you to death with extra fees for handling alcohol and pickups and rerouting and such…

Not wine related, but I’ve got a buddy who is a machinist. He shipped stuff to customers for years using UPS. Then a couple of packages disappeared en route. He submitted his bill to reimbursement to UPS for exactly what he charged the customer. UPS balked and said it would only pay for the cost of the raw materials and not for the labor my friend put into making the stuff. They considered the labor “profit” and they don’t cover profits under their shipping policies.
My friend now only ships FedEx. So keep insurance coverage in mind when considering the two.