WTF would a winery ship 2nd day ON A FRIDAY?

WINE TALK
1

I got a shipping notice last night. This makes no sense. What the hell would you want the wine to spend the extra 2 days in UPS’s hands? 2 day shipping now turns into 4 days, which is pretty equivalent to ground?

Can anyone give a reasonable explanation for such insanity?

2

Bruce, I have had this often. Is it just info transfered to UPS/FEDEX or is the actual box in transit when you check the tracking number?

If option B, I would request the ‘difference to ground fees’ back from said winery.
It’s annoying though.

3

I second Mike’s question. Some shippers, notably Fedex, do not allow the shipper to coordinate recipient notification to the actual ship date. If the winery prints the label on a Friday, the FedEx customer gets an email on Friday.

Is the winery small? Open only on weekends? Frequently wineries pack orders Fri-Sun when there are staff there to help with shipping–especially since FedEx pickups are generally first thing in the morning. Prepping on Friday means your order is ready for pickup on Monday a.m.

UPS software is more advanced in that regard. We can print a label but schedule the pickup for a later date, and email notification is not sent until the scheduled pickup date. Moot point for cross-country deliveries which generally have to go by FedEx.

Edit: Just noticed you specified UPS. Could be a total FUBAR mistake, or it might be that the person who issued the label didn’t know how to advance-date a shipment. Have you called the winery?

4

I have also had UPS do the ‘transfer info’ thing. Sometimes 2 days in advance.

5

I have that happen all the time too, and actually expected that to be the case. Which is why I was so shocked when I clicked on it today and saw that it was picked up yesterday and is currently sitting in Oakland.

While I agree about the foibles of many winery employees, this shipment came from a 3rd party shipping company. They are the ones that really should know better.

As for the name of the winery, it’s not important. Anyone that got the same email, please don’t post the name, as I believe I have inadvertently offended them by posting this frustration in the first place.

I think this was a miscommunication between the winery and the 3rd party shipper. I have exchanged emails with the winery, but I am still not clear on exactly what happened.

6

Maybe they think “FL” is “Finland?”

7

…

So the title of this thread is “WTF would a winery ship 2nd day ON A FRIDAY?”

Oh but they DIDN’T - it’s the 3rd party shipping company.

And the complaint here is that someone didn’t think before doing something?

[oops.gif]

8

Funny, post Rick.

Let me be the first to say that it is annoying, but given the temps in Northern CA, if the package stays the weekend there, the wine should be fine.

Nevertheless, idiotic, indeed.

9

The winery is responsible for its 3rd party shipping company, and the shipping mistake happened because of a miscommunication between the winery and the shipper. If a winery uses a 3rd party to ship and that 3rd party misunderstands what they are told, because of either conflicting instructions or easily misunderstood instructions, I do put that on the winery. So, I think the thread title is valid. But I mentioned that this was handled by a 3rd party shipper because I continue to be surprised at how some boneheaded mistakes can be made by a company that is does this as their sole business.

As I said above, this was posted to express frustration over a very stupid shipping decision and ask if anyone could provide a logical reason for shipping that day other than an error. I am on record as believing that wineries need to exercise more control over the shipping companies that THEY HIRE to fulfill their orders. I explained that it was the shipping company’s error to absolve the winery of blame for a bad decision, but that was not to absolve the winery of any blame or responsibility for the error. And the winery has promised to step up and make it right if there is any problem.

You are correct about the weather. I am not real worried about the weekend in Oakland. Nor am I worried about Loisville, where the wine went to this morning. I am more concerned about the temp when the wine gets here on Tuesday, which is currently forecast to be 83 degrees. Wednesday is supposed to stay in the 70’s. Shipping on a Monday allows a shipment to be cancelled if the forecast is for warm temps, which Colginn did last week. Shipping on a Friday puts the shipment at more risk since they don’t get to see an updated forecast.

10

If a winery uses a 3rd party to ship and that 3rd party misunderstands what they are told, because of either conflicting instructions or easily misunderstood instructions

rolleyes And you know what the winery told the shipping company… how? For all you know the winery gave them the wine Monday and told them to ship everything by Tuesday.

Ask the winery to credit back the cost difference, but otherwise, lighten up - two more days won’t make a difference unless it’s hot - in which case they shouldn’t have shipped in the first place.

To be clear, I’m NOT saying it’s OK to have shipped 2 day air on a Friday. But instead of immediately coming here and posting, you might have actually talked to the winery and let them find out from the shipping company wtf happened. If they screw you, then come here and complain, but I think the right way to deal with this stuff is to talk to the winery involved first. You say you annoyed them with the post - well DUH. Instead of giving them a chance to figure this out and do the right thing you ran here - I’d be annoyed at you too. Of course, I’d also credit you the shipping difference at the very least.

11

And why should you care about offending them? Shouldn’t they be the one apologizing?

12

Sigh. The sense of whiny entitlement over minor wine issues never ceases to amaze me. Let me play devil’s advocate for a second:

If the winery has a mix of second day air and ground shipments, they want everything to go out Monday. That will ensure that the ground shipments are delivered by the end of the week and the second day air shipments are delivered mid-week. There’s no impact to the condition of the wine if the wines sit in a UPS warehouse at ~65-72F for a couple of days and giving UPS the wines Friday ensures that everything is ready to go Monday morning. Dropping off Ground stuff Monday might mean that some of those wines go out Tuesday and some could end up in a warehouse over the next weekend… and that warehouse might NOT be in temperate conditions.

The ONLY reason Bruce is out of sorts is that he got a wine shipping notice on Friday. If the notice had arrived Monday he’d be perfectly happy. “But he paid for 2 day delivery!!!” Yes, and the only difference is that the wine is spending the two weekend days in a warehouse instead of the winery. THAT’S IT. Whether they were in UPS’s hands Friday afternoon or Monday morning, the wines will still be delivered Wednesday. He still gets them on the same exact day - the weekend is the ONLY difference and unless you think that 2 days at room temp is a critical issue, this is much ado over absolutely nothing. In fact, this could be the result of the winery trying to make extra-sure that they’re doing right by their Ground customers and simply bundling in 2 day air stuff since the UPS warehouse is fine temperature-wise at this point. But nooo, some uptight wine geek just has to bitch. [bleh.gif]

13

I know what happened because the winery told me what happened. The instructions to the shipper were somewhat conflicting. The shipper should have realized that and asked for clarification, but shipped without doing so.

To be clear, I’m NOT saying it’s OK to have shipped 2 day air on a Friday. But instead of immediately coming here and posting, you might have actually talked to the winery and let them find out from the shipping company wtf happened. If they screw you, then come here and complain, but I think the right way to deal with this stuff is to talk to the winery involved first. You say you annoyed them with the post - well DUH. Instead of giving them a chance to figure this out and do the right thing you ran here - I’d be annoyed at you too. Of course, I’d also credit you the shipping difference at the very least.

I did go to the winery to find out what happened. That is why I know the answer. But I posted here at the same time. EXCUSE ME for expressing some frustration over a stupid shipping decision by someone in the winery shipping chain. If I wanted to complain about the winery, I would have named them, which I did not. But I believe that a wine board is a perfectly acceptable place to blow off some steam when someone paid to handle shipping does something so stupid. I’m so sorry to have offended you by doing so. rolleyes

I am not worried about offending them, but I did not mean for them to take offense. They have apologized. They are good people and I did not post this thread to jump on them. That is why I intentionally avoided naming the winery.

14

Rick,

You seem to be trying to pick a fight, for whater reason that is beyond me. You may recall from our days on the ebob board that I am not one to just complain about every little thing. But for you to say that a consumer should never post about frustrations over failures in the supply chain is idiotic. It is a perfectly valid subject for discussion. In fact, I recall a time when I mentioned hearing from a retailer about a distributor that imported wine in non-reefers when they were supposed to use reefers, you asked me for the name. Funny that you thought that was worth discussing, but this isn’t. I guess the lesson is that importer errors are fair game but winery shipping errors aren’t.

Now, despite you wanting to be the big shot that knows all, you are wrong on several issues. First, the wine is not sitting at UPS waiting to go on Monday. YOU WOULD KNOW THAT IF YOU BOTHERED TO READ MY POSTS INSTEAD OF JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT THEM. The wine is already half way here. I won’t have it on Wednesday as I should, when it is supposed to be 76 and cloudy. Instead the wine is supposed to get here a day earlier, when it is expected to be 83 degrees here. Yes, 7 degrees matters to me. As does the fact that I am not normally around on Tuesdays to accept shipments, but am here on Wednesdays. So now I have to rework my schedule to be here for the delivery.

I do find it kind of funny that you would post what you suspect to be the explanation for what happened, which is completely wrong, instead of believing what I wrote, which came straight from the winery.

The long and short of this is that I asked the winery what happened but instead of waiting for the response and explanation from the winery, I asked if anyone here could provide a logical explanation for the shipping decision. You seemed interested enough to click on the thread, only to complain about the subject. So you can just get off your friggin high horse and avoid my posts in the future.

15

I’m guessing I know the winery that shipped, because I got the exact same deal Friday night as well for a wine destined to FL. My wine is currently sitting in KY, and yet it is not expected to be delivered until Tuesday. Not exactly 2 day shipping…that is for sure.

From UPS:
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 11/08/2009 8:16 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
OAKLAND, CA, US 11/08/2009 1:30 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
OAKLAND, CA, US 11/07/2009 5:17 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
WEST SACRAMENTO, CA, US 11/07/2009 12:43 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
SANTA ROSA, CA, US 11/06/2009 9:27 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
11/06/2009 8:08 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 11/06/2009 7:12 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED