Hi, i’m curious which companies people use for shipping, particularly within California. We had been using a relatively well known shipper and were generally satisfied, but have had two recent unsatisfactory experiences and were extremely dissatisfied with their responses. I’d appreciate any recommendations.
Thanks.
Do you mean for repacked, individual boxes for direct to consumer shipments, or cases/pallets of wine to ship from warehouse to warehouse?
thanks–should have been clearer. They are generally ok with pallets (although they aren’t good with communicating arrival times)–the two most recent issues were cases we needed shipped to southern california for pouring at events. In each case the cases did not arrive on time and there was no communication from the shipper, and in the most recent case a redelivery was scheduled and also missed.
thanks.
Sounds like the issues I have with GSO. Last winter I was pouring at Pinot Days LA. I shipped two cases down a few days in advance. They broke one of the cases, but of course they didn’t inform me. When I got to Pinot Days and only one case was there, I called them on the phone. They explained about the broken case. I asked why hadn’t they called or emailed me, I could’ve sent or brought a replacement case. The exact same thing just happened last month with a shipment to San Jose. They never informed me, nor the customer. Then the broken case was sent back to the winery without telling anyone. Their communication is usually pretty bad.
I have much better luck with Fedex, and their rates can be lower than GSO. Since we’re members of the Wine Institute, we get the free adult signature with Fedex, which helps save. I pretty much stopped using UPS due to their $5.00 adult signature and $2.00 extra residential delivery charges. The one and only downside to Fedex is that we have to repack full cases. With GSO, we can send the original case box. They “usually” don’t break them, only 2 in about 9 years.
thanks for your note. i didn’t want to out the shipper, but let’s just say our experiences are very similar to yours (including the absence of customer communication) and we are now looking at zephyr, fed ex and ups as alternatives for events we’ve lined up for the next two saturdays. Zephyr is a little more expensive, but we may do a test run with them.
Thanks.
Don’t know if it is an option but one of our local winery sales reps bought two wine checks to haul 2 cases around CA and packs his clothes in his carry on. Of course he flies South West and isn’t charged for the first two bags.
When he has to go to Chicago, New York and few other eastern cities, he drops the wine off and we ship them to his hotel and occasionally the venue for the tasting. We use UPS and shipping to a business is the cheapest.
As a receiver only, I’ll say that GSO sucks, FedEx a little less, and UPS always works well. UPS even has very competitive rates for overnight within CA.
GSO isn’t exactly a tightly run ship. I frequently ask customers about their preferences – a good number like their GSO service, and a few have had Peter’s experience. The advantage of not having to repack into (and buy) a shipping box is pretty significant, and I’ll use GSO in CA unless the customer prefers UPS. I’ve had a couple bottle breaks with GSO, but UPS seems to be able to break bottles at a similar pace, even though they are handling wine in styrofoam shippers. Neither is any day at the beach when it comes to coughing up credits for breakage, but GSO has eventually made good. There is more professionalism with UPS, but there are countervailing annoyances – like paying for 4 adult signature fees for 4 cases sent together to the same recipient. I don’t have a lot of experience with FedEx. Maybe I should.
Stewart, when I used to ship with UPS, and I had a multi box shipment to one customer, I’d officially do the adult signature on one of the boxes, and I’d just put adult stickers on the other boxes, but while preparing the shipment I wouldn’t check the adult signature required on the extra boxes. Never had a driver or UPS center who caught that. I thought the $5 adult charge was ridiculous to begin with, but paying it multiple times for the same stop was out of the question.
Thanks for the thoughts–we’re going to try Zephyr for some smaller shipments where they are pretty competitive on price and stay with GSO for a pallet delivery to Southern California because their quote was 1/3 of Zephyr.
Thanks.
I think I’ve posted about PC Freight/Wineryship before. It’s purposely under the radar, but they fill a niche for smaller wineries. I can explain a bit more if you want to PM, or you can contact them here PCFreight.com. They usually save a little bit compared to going directly thru UPS on ground shipping, but they save a considerable amount on expedited packages. I just compared rates on an overnight to WA, and Wineryship was literally half the cost of the UPS website.