I found one negative comment on an old thread about LSO, but not much else.
Have a winery looking to use LSO to ship (I assume because they lack proper permits to ship via FedEx/UPS to my state and they were denied by their logistics company). I’ve used LSO one other time and I was less than impressed with the delivery. Wine was warm, the delivery vehicle appeared to be someone’s personal vehicle and was beat to heck. Plus, no tracking and they would only go to my home not my office. With temps isn’t he 70’s arriving now, I’m nervous about shipping anyway.
Anyone have a good experience they are willing to share?
Otherwise, I may just call off my order.
I’m leery to have it shipped to my offsite who will then ship it to me as these aren’t long term aging bottles and don’t really want to pay for double shipping, plus the intake fee.
They are final mile for me here in TX from a PNW outfit.
I have had no issues with them at all in the delivery aspect. Driver always texts when he is an hour out or so to ensure somebody is home to sign. Never had wines shipped when it was warm, but that is on the retailer.
Bill, how do you get your text number into the driver’s hands? The issue I always have is that the shipper gives me a tracking number, and the tracking number is useless (doesn’t show anything except that it’s in route). Then suddenly they’ve delivered (or attempted to deliver). The problem occurs when for various reasons they can’t deliver. Delivery is to my office and at one point my office rejected a delivery because the driver couldn’t locate my name to show them. (My company won’t accept packages without an individual to deliver them to).
I was checking the LSO “tracking” website all day, and suddenly it went from “In Route” to “Unable To Deliver…Package Returned to Sender”. Fortunately, I called LSO and was able to get them to stop the return package and hold it in their warehouse until I could pick it up. But all this could be avoided if the driver would just call or text me…I would even meet them at our loading dock so they wouldn’t have to leave them with our delivery team (who puts them through an X-ray device…which I am always concerned couldn’t possibly do the wine any good).
No clue how they got my number. I suppose from the retailer as I never provided LSO my cell. The driver (same every time) texts day of deliver when he is close. Two times I was out of town, and had to let my wife know.
As for X-Rays, I cannot imagine it does any harm to wine. Tom Hill is our expert on that, though.
I’ve received a few shipments via LSO as the final carrier. I haven’t found a reliable way to determine when they might deliver as I usually don’t have any LSO tracking info, just that of the initial carrier, so the exact day is usually a surprise. Luckily (I think), LSO doesn’t care if it’s wine and will just leave the shipment on my porch if I don’t answer the door quickly.
I’m not really thinking the X-rays do any meaningful or dramatic harm to the wine (just as X-rays don’t dramatically harm people). I just assume it’s like a lot of things–transport of wine, exposure to light, shaking bottle, expected temperature variation (e.g. as a wine might go from cellar temp to 70-73 degrees when shipped by importer, back down to cellar temp, up again for shipping to customer, back down to cellar temp). All of these things have a cumulative effect on the wine, even though no single event by itself is significant. Thus, I cringe at an unnecessary X-ray of my bottles, just as I cringe a bit when I know my wine is in transit and undergoing who-know-how-much jostling and temp variation…
Update on this shipment. Received notice from Vynapse (the wineries normal logistics/shipping company) my wines would ship on Saturday complete with LSO tracking number. LSO showed nothing in their tracking system until yesterday when it showed they picked it up but no location given. Received email this morning that wine would be delivered today. Received wine about 4:15 this afternoon. Of course today was hottest day of the year with a high of 87. Bottles were a bit warm to touch but I’m sure they’re fine.
All in all it’s fine, I just wish they had better tracking.
Never had any issues and they almost exclusively deliver my stuff to my office. They usually call me the day before for a good time to come. They’re generally on time but we have a person up front so not a big deal as long as normal hours.