Had two shipments from NY via UPS Ground sent this week and both arrived on schedule in 2 days.
We’ll see about cross country. I have 20 cases or so scheduled from CA to ship on Nov 1.
They took 3-4 days to ship some wine to me from 45 miles away. The usual reasons like there weren’t any adults present to sign, but the delivery address is a package receiving location that definitely had 2-3 adults present at the supposed delivery time. I think all the services are stressed and (to some degree) making up excuses rather than simply admitting it.
-Al
And yet anything I order from Amazon using my prime account shows up the next day without fail? Are they taking all the shipping capacity in the system?
We have things we have been buying for years from Amazon be ‘OOS’ since last October.
Plenty of delays/issues with Amazon too, but not as bad as others since they control more of their own logistics.
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Great color Greg. WSJ had an article covering the particular nuances around school bus drivers: they apparently have more background checks, work only in the morning/afternoon (5-6 hrs a day but not continuous thus no 2nd job), and generally pay less than private sector. Unsurprisingly, districts are unable hire/retain this niche category of driver. There was something in another paper about fuel truck drivers along the same theme - more licensing, more danger, lousy work conditions.
And I can see why no one would want to go into the trade, if in 5-10 years Uber, Tesla, Cruise etc. will have fully automated truck driving work so any time/skills invested are worth nothing in the future.
They do a lot of fulfillment (warehousing, shipping) for other sellers, so it may be partly because you have more suppliers on one website.
On the other hand, I ordered a replacement top for a common Cuisinart food processor a few weeks ago. There were several sources on Amazon, but the earliest I could get it was several weeks. I was surprised.
The Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast has had a number of very good episodes this year on the shipping trade. The original post immediately made me think of this episode on the U.S. rail network (Bloomberg - Are you a robot?). It is worth a listen.
Couriers the world over are under the pump. Massive increase in demand for home deliveries. Shortage of drivers and warehouse staff.
I wonder if 10 Downing Street is on that delivery route.
Stock price is down 25 percent during last 3 months, whereas S&P is slightly up.
While maybe not coming apart at the seams, seams are certainly showing some wear.
GLS has been the absolute worse for wine deliveries. I recently needed to send some wine samples from our Sonoma warehouse to St. Helena (29 miles) and it took 5 days for the delivery. They don’t always give you correct updates on status and they are just unreliable. Service has gotten worse since GSO was bought out and I didn’t think that was possible.
LOL
I think the drivers just flag a cause when they can’t make the delivery. I had a wine shipment delivered to the office. They screwed up twice and when I called they said nobody home.
I told the gal look up my corporate account. The address you are delivering to is the place GLS picks up packages EVERY DAY. Oops
Customer service is actually quite good. Plus GLS can’t handle billing for dimensional so they just charge by weight. I shipped a 10 foot aluminum tray that weighed 10lbs and it cost me $8. 
It’s funny, the person handling my order with Flannery said the same thing, but after FedEx failed three times in a row she reluctantly agreed to GLS. Interestingly, from a consumer perspective my experience with GLS has always been positive, I generally get all my packages on time, and I really liked the wine service they offered back when I still lived in CA - no shipping materials! But yeah, you’re experience seems much more typical it seems.
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I am now amazed by the recovery by FedEx Ground…
Yesterday AM after a week, my package was in AZ in 90+ degrees with a Tues delivery, then there was a supposed scan in Bakersfield still with a Tuesday delivery followed by Sacto scan and a Fri delivery earlier today. Now, out for delivery TODAY!
Yay and I forgive the dissonant info and commend their 24 hour performance!
Lesson learned is their data may be unreliable, but that you may be lucky and the seams may hold.
Wishing good outcomes to all in this unpredictable shipping season.
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My experience with GSO in less challenging times was that they usually worked great and were super fast in the areas they cover, but that the shipments that went sideways often went well off the rails. Having visited the warehouses of UPS, FedEx, FedEx Ground, and GSO, it’s the latter that inspired the least confidence, by far.
-Al
Cool enough in Napa and shipping route to Las Vegas to ship my wines Ive been acquiring from Wine Bid. Shipped out yesterday and Fed Ex says it will be here tomorrow. I will keep you posted.
Day 4 of “Next day morning delivery” that has not arrived. 
lol
My experience with the carriers has been that ground shipping is a crapshoot that will take anywhere from one day sooner than the quoted time (happened once or twice) to about double the quoted time with no indication whatsoever. My experience with air has been pretty good … nothing “overnight” has been delayed by more than 1 day, though Overnight AM is clearly worth zero. I often get it at 2pm-6pm. Same with 2-day air … nothing delayed by more than 1 day. Again 2-day AM is worth nothing.
My recent order from Perliss is coming via Vine Vault door to door temperature controlled. It’s gonna end up taking like 6-8 weeks, but who really cares for that level of assurance unless you need it for something specific?
Help me understand the risk. If temps are below 70 in the shipping route, should I worry? Even if a package gets stuck, I’m not inclined to worry given current temps. What’s the the threshold for outside temps damaging wine that’s in a cardboard box (maybe in styrofoam, maybe in cardboard shippers)?
It’s not the maximum temperature that’s the issue sometimes… it’s the temperature fluctuation I think the wines keep going up and down in temperature through the day combined with the shaking constantly of the bottles