Shipping Question- Who is accountable to troubleshoot?

Scenario:

  1. Wine retailer ships your wine via fedex ground.
  2. Wine estimated to be delivered Tuesday, tracking number provided all that good stuff
  3. Looking at the detailed tracking on Thursday you see that the wine is still in transit- is in Troutdale Oregon and has been since Sunday- scanned at least once per day.
  4. You contact the retailer and they tell you to contact Fed-Ex.

This may not be a big deal to some- I can certainly contact Fed-Ex directly, but my point is that I should not have to. They hired Fed-Ex, Fed-Ex is their delivery contractor/customer. I am their customer - I expect THEM to contact Fedex and get this resolved. I paid them- I shouldn’t have to troubleshoot my delivery with their sub-contractor.

Am I crazy? Petty? Both?

Scott…Agree with you 100%. Just had an issue with an order…had ordered a case and opened the box to see 11 bottles. Emailed the winery and they dealt with packager and shipper. I would anticipate a winery to care more than a retailer, though a decent retailer should want to help.

I would expect them to call. That said, I probably would have called FedEx myself first.

Scott,

I recently had a similar issue with Vivino and their shipper UPS. I went back and forth with both and learnt that both contract out their customer service overseas. After numerous attempts to find my wine which UPS claimed was going to be delivered that day for 4 days in a row ( UPS driver said he was supposed to have the wine but it was not on the truck) I discovered that neither Vivino nor UPS customer service had any more clue where the wine was than I did. The wine mysteriously appeared about a week after it was supposed to have been delivered!

I agree that the wine retailer should be responsible for resolving the issue with their shipper when a wine is lost (or delayed) in transit. You are certainly not crazy!

I once ordered a case of wine from a retailer in California. I had a tracking number but it didn’t come. After a few days, I contacted the retailer and they said the package had been refused and returned to them. My fault somehow and reshipment was my responsibility and my cost. I contacted UPS and found out they intercepted the shipment and returned it because there was an issue with their agreement with the retailer. I contacted the retailer and they fixed whatever their problem was with UPS and I had my wine 2 days later. So you might be in the middle of a dispute between the seller and UPS (or FedEx).

I would keep in mind that Vivino does not actually sell wine. They connect you with retailers. Maybe the retailer wouldn’t have been able to help you anyway, given that UPS seemed not to know where it was, but at least you’d have a better chance if you talked to them directly.

I’m in Seattle and have some wine that’s been stuck in Troutdale since Sunday as well. From what I’ve found online, FedEx is extremely backed up right now and our packages are likely just sitting in a trailer that they haven’t gotten to yet – other ones are prioritized above ours. The trailers with our packages in them get scanned once in the morning and once at night, remaining “in transit” but not going anywhere. Super frustrating.

As a retailer, I have tried to work things out with Fedex myself many times when delivery hasn’t gone smoothly. However, it’s often easier for the recipient to call when Fedex messes up, because the company might offer to schedule a one time delivery at a day and time that’s convenient for the recipient to make up for their mistake(s). Even beyond that, the recipient sometimes has
more options than the shipper. As a consumer (which I often am), I have no expectation of the retailer dealing with the shipping company once the package leaves their store. That doesn’t really make sense to me. A lot of times, the recipient ends up having to call anyway. I don’t think you’re crazy or petty or anything like that, but I do think your expectations might not be taking the whole situation into account.

It’s holiday season with increasing packages getting shipped every single year. I would cut them all some slack (but would be nice to know where it is). I think many packages are getting held up somewhere, because even non-wine deliveries are taking longer than expected.

Same here. It is annoying, but not causing me any problems. It would be different if it was 10 degrees in that trailer.

I would take it up with FedEx myself.

My most bizarre shipping story - I normally deliver to my office, but when I’m going to be off work but not certain I’ll be home to sign, I have had FedEx deliver to the local Walgreen’s, with perfect success. This seller uses UPS. Not having done this before, I asked the seller if UPS does the same thing as FedEx and was told by the retailer that yes, even if I don’t have an account or a box there I can have it shipped to the local UPS Store and just swing by and pick it up there. So the magic day comes and I’m home but about to head out to for lunch, very close to the UPS Store. So I check online tracking and it says that a delivery attempt was made but delivery was refused because “recipient didn’t order product” (or something similar). I called UPS, waited in the call queue, and eventually spoke with the overseas call center person who only marginally understood the problem, and they said since it was their mistake they’d make another stop at the UPS store yet that same day and make sure it got delivered. Uncertain how reliable this was, I stopped by the UPS Store on the way to lunch. The annoyed and quite unhelpful manager/owner(?) there explained to me that UPS Stores are not company owned stores like FedEx stores and it’s up to each store owner whether to accept deliveries and he does not, so if they bring it by again, he’ll refuse it again.

(As an aside, I completely understand his position though he didn’t have to be so grumpy at me, if UPS won’t do anything to compensate store owners. But what a dumb move by UPS - if FedEx can work it out not only to accept deliveries at stores they own but at stores they don’t own - like Walgreen’s - then you’d think UPS could be smart about it and work something out to compensate UPS Store owners to accept packages and thus make it more attractive for folks to ship UPS, but apparently not).

Armed with this news, I called again, waited some more in the call queue, and spoke with a different overseas operator who clearly grasped the situation quicker and better than the first one did, and she had the local dispatcher call me. At the point he calls me back, I’m at the restaurant having lunch. He tells me the driver with my package is in a broken down truck, waiting for a service truck, but only two strip malls down the road. So I leave my sandwich with my wife and daughter, and head down the very busy road. I get there maybe 5 minutes later, and there’s no brown truck there, broken down or otherwise. Since I have the number he called me from in my cell phone, I call him back - no answer - and the only number listed on Google maps for the local distribution center is the main number. Here we go again. Back to the call queue and to yet another overseas operator. More trouble grasping the situation. She eventually says that she’ll have the dispatcher call me back within an hour. I try again to explain that since what we’re trying to do is time-sensitive I don’t have an hour and she finally says that while she still cannot just transfer me to the local dispatcher, she’ll put me down for an expedited call back. I wait some more and get a text from my daughter that they are done and she will bring the rest of my sandwich home and meet me there (we had two cars between the three of us since we came from two different places). Right after that, the dispatcher calls back and says "oh yeah, I guess he got the truck started, but at the moment he’s at such and such store and I will tell him not to leave there for up to 10 minutes so you can get there.” And guess where such and such store is? Right across the parking lot from the restaurant at which I was just having lunch, of course! So I quickly call my daughter back and luckily they’ve left the restaurant, but they were just getting in the car and hadn’t driven away - “Do you see a UPS truck?” “Yes!” - so I ask them to go talk to the driver while I drive back over there. As they do, they see a second UPS truck further down in the same parking lot. So they approach the first driver and he asks them “Are you the ones trying to pick your package up from the truck?” - “Yes” - “Well, it’s not on my truck, it’s on his truck” (pointing to the other one). And the other one - the one that was supposed to wait up to 10 minutes starting about 1 minute ago - is now driving away.

So my sainted wife runs across the parking lot, waving her arms and yelling, and he stops and gives her the package, and I arrive 3 minutes later.

The morals of the story - FedEx 1, UPS 0; You’ll solve your shipping issues better most of the time if you contact the shipper directly rather than asking the seller to do it; Do not ship things to a UPS Store at which you do not have an account thinking that you can just pick them up there at your convenience.

I sent the seller an email laying out this story (given that it was their incorrect advice that started the whole fiasco), not asking for anything, mostly just to let them know, and I received no response at all. That was disappointing.

But I did get a great deal on the wine, and I did get the wine on the same day that it was supposed to arrive, so there is that. And it is the only package (wine or not) that I have ever received by going to the truck rather than waiting for the truck to come to me.

And like the others above, I’ve had some more recent shipments (wine and other stuff) take an extra day or two lately, and I’ve heard the same thing. It’s sheer volume, and they only have so many trucks, drivers, or whatnot. So a package can arrive at the local depot and then sit there for a an extra day or so because every truck leaves full and there still isn’t room on any of them for your package. We can gripe at the higher-ups for not arranging for more trucks and more drivers, but all the folks who actually touch the packages are busting their butts this time of year to make our lives easier and bring us all the goodies we’ve ordered.

I agree. If wine hadn’t shown up I was going to try to contact the retailer (Studio Beverage group).

Honestly that makes me feel a bit better knowing other peoples wine is stuck in troutdale. :slight_smile:. Not schadenfreude but maybe misery loves company? Or that it isn’t my shipment only

Hah yeah, nice to know that your specific package isn’t sitting under an I-5 overpass somewhere.

Tis the season. If you want a package by Christmas, use second day this week and overnight next week. Nothing shipped on the week of Christmas will get there by Christmas. Every UPS truck in Napa has two people on it starting last Monday. Some stuff is showing up a day late if it is coming from another state, except second day and overnight so far.

On the issue of who calls UPS, the shipper is responsible for changes, lost, late and returned packages. If you call the UPS center and request a change in delivery, nine times out of ten they will refer you back to the shipper. We have already had to make delivery changes on 3 packages shipped last week as part of a corporate order of Christmas gifts. Primarily, holding the shipper responsible is to ensure a third party isn’t trying to intercept/steal your package as well as reduce the number of fraudulent orders placed on your stolen credit card. We’ve had UPS send packages back because their attorney hasn’t reviewed/confirmed FL’s new shipping rules which allow shipping from out of state retailers and wineries. We also know certain areas throughout the USA are unable to handle the load, even with part-time help, if they can get part-time help. Another thing with UPS, we have representative assigned to us locally. If we have a real problem, they help facilitate delivery, often times providing us with the local UPS center in your area so we can coordinate delivery or have them contact the recipient directly. We ship about 2,500 packages in a slow year and have issues on between 5 and 10 shipments annually. Employee theft, accident or break down only accounts for 2 or 3 a year maximum. We lost a case of wine in a train derailment and several “improperly packaged” packages they ran over with a forklift. We are in our 17th year of business and ship about half as much at Christmas time as we did in 2004 through 2007 with same percentage of problems then as now.

It’s a great story Dave!

As to having things held at locations other than your home - I learned a long time ago that you need to check with the specific store or location before having anything sent there. And go in, don’t just call. See if you can talk to a manager and look around to see if there are boxes held for other people.

And UPS is all over the place when it comes to accepting packages - some take packages, some don’t, some will do it for a fee, others will if it’s in the evening but the morning manager won’t, etc.

I had a package make it halfway here and get turned around at the request of the winery because they got behind on renewing their paperwork to ship to MD. FedEx was able to explain it when I called to ask what happened, and the winery confirmed it. Made the trip unscathed a week later. Beats the old days when things could get confiscated just transiting MD to WV.

This year’s Christmas shipping is going to be more jammed up than usual because there’s one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

You probably don’t want to hear this, but Bedrock shipped my wine Tues. via Fed-x ground and it arrived today Thur.

There ought to be some kind of law making any service or product that is sold in the US to have customer service in the US.
It’s too bad companies use such general numbers for location-specific problems that could be solved so much easier if dealt with locally. But, you got your package!

And I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a broken down UPS truck; they are serviced pretty well before they go out.