Shipping

[maxwelhse]

I haven't had any problems with UPS, FedEx, Amazon, or even Walmart's next day people. Just USPS firmly leaning on their shovels for about the last month.

 

[4651feeder]

You know as critical as I can be regarding the dismal svc provided by the USPS, can't really find fault with our regular carrier's performance.

 

[bwframe]

UPS, who has been the stellar carrier in years past, is now feeling the heat from Amazon.

Two deliveries from Amazon (overflow?) have been delayed by UPS this week. It seemed really fishy that UPS was the carrier delivering for Amazon on Saturday, when UPS doesn't deliver on Saturdays.

I got the "track our truck" email on Saturday. Again fishy, when the truck got within a few miles it then showed up on their tracking at the Bloomington hub. Package got here yesterday. As far as I seen a UPS truck never came down our road on Saturday. I guess I should be happy it came at all, with all the excuses that seem so easy to use?

I talked to the UPS guy today, without divulging I knew what had happened Saturday. He said the drivers don't like delivering on Saturdays and UPS shouldn't try to make them do it anymore.

 

[IndyBeerman]

UPS, who has been the stellar carrier in years past, is now feeling the heat from Amazon.

Two deliveries from Amazon (overflow?) have been delayed by UPS this week. It seemed really fishy that UPS was the carrier delivering for Amazon on Saturday, when UPS doesn't deliver on Saturdays.

I got the "track our truck" email on Saturday. Again fishy, when the truck got within a few miles it then showed up on their tracking at the Bloomington hub. Package got here yesterday. As far as I seen a UPS truck never came down our road on Saturday. I guess I should be happy it came at all, with all the excuses that seem so easy to use?

I talked to the UPS guy today, without divulging I knew what had happened Saturday. He said the drivers don't like delivering on Saturdays and UPS shouldn't try to make them do it anymore.

Nothing like showing that elite attitude of entitlement.

When I was younger, and heck even into my early 40's I would have given my eye teeth to have a local UPS route and worked my arse off, especially at the money they make. Hustling packages would have been easier
than humping 1000-2000 cases of beer a day. $65k a year for a 5 day a week job, damn straight I'd work Saturdays for overtime pay.

 

[RMG]

I ordered a CD from a record shop in Chicago at the beginning of December. Here is the USPS route it took from Chicago to West Lafayette >>

 

[KellyinAvon]

I look at a lot of USPS tracking at work. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always rough. More misdirected parcels, longer time to get them pointed in the right direction. I'm seeing changes in how mail is routed (being sorted at a different facility), different tracking scans comparing our packages picked up early (around Noon) vice the 1600 pick-up.

This year is the worst I've seen. A pandemic, record number of parcels, plus we have contractors who move mail from facilities in Chicago and Charleston, SC to the USPS sort facility off of Kentucky Ave. These contractors, well they sucked before Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah, that "In-Transit"** scan on the USPS tracking? Complete BS! If the parcel hasn't hit a scanner in 24 hours it goes on the tracking. Updates every 24 hours for four days. Picked-up, arrived at Sort Facility (unless following "Arrived at Post Office"), arrived at Post Office, and delivered are real scans. "Departed" scans are updates to the manifest (unless at a Regional Sort Facility and it hits a scanner twice, opposed to the manifest update... confused now??)

Edit: ** applies to First Class and Priority Mail, not Express Mail.

 

[DadSmith]

I ordered a CD from a record shop in Chicago at the beginning of December. Here is the USPS route it took from Chicago to West Lafayette >>

View attachment 95109

They definitely need to fire some of their leadership, get better program for their computer system. No wonder they are broke. Maybe its time to let them go bye bye and contract US mail delivery to private companies.

 

[223 Gunner]

These are the same people that handled all those mail in ballots.
I wonder how many of those were "lost"......................

 

[4651feeder]

UPS, who has been the stellar carrier in years past, is now feeling the heat from Amazon.

Two deliveries from Amazon (overflow?) have been delayed by UPS this week. It seemed really fishy that UPS was the carrier delivering for Amazon on Saturday, when UPS doesn't deliver on Saturdays.

I got the "track our truck" email on Saturday. Again fishy, when the truck got within a few miles it then showed up on their tracking at the Bloomington hub. Package got here yesterday. As far as I seen a UPS truck never came down our road on Saturday. I guess I should be happy it came at all, with all the excuses that seem so easy to use?

I talked to the UPS guy today, without divulging I knew what had happened Saturday. He said the drivers don't like delivering on Saturdays and UPS shouldn't try to make them do it anymore.

During my 3+ decades of UPS employment, the Saturdays leading up to Christmas always had work available, just not to the extent seen this year.

My understanding is soon after my retirement language was inserted contractually for Tues-Sat shifts, in some centers drivers embraced it and volunteered, in those centers where it was not embraced and willingly volunteered for, it was assigned to low seniority drivers, as work of this nature has always been. In the center serving my delivery location many of the Mon-Fri scheduled drivers volunteered for Sat work this year and received overtime pay for it. Others were forced into a Tues-Sat shift and only received straight time pay for Sat.; perhaps this was one of those individuals with whom you spoke.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I just tempted fate. Ordered a used DVD on ebay with free shipping. No big loss. I'm only out $5.33. And if it never appears paypal/ebay insurance will cover it.

Think I see it before February? LOL

Oh, and my amazon package is still stuck in St Charles...

 

[maxwelhse]

They definitely need to fire some of their leadership, get better program for their computer system. No wonder they are broke. Maybe its time to let them go bye bye and contract US mail delivery to private companies.

You'd be surprised how optimized a lot of those crazy looking routes can be, especially with a very small package like a CD in a time of insane demand.Each of those crazy legs could have saved one entire truck load going in the "wrong" direction for all we know.

I blame the current issues with USPS delivery speed on their lack of scalability, likely due to their union contracts, not their overall routing strategy.

---

Day 21 and my Vegas package is now in Indy. USPS says it's supposed to be delivered today (a solid 3.5 hours from Indy).

I'm betting the 27th-28th by the time I actually see it. Today is 21 days since shipped and 15 days late.

 

[IndyBeerman]

I just tempted fate. Ordered a used DVD on ebay with free shipping. No big loss. I'm only out $5.33. And if it never appears paypal/ebay insurance will cover it.

Think I see it before February? LOL

Oh, and my amazon package is still stuck in St Charles...

The CD I bought through eBay took 27 days to arrive here in Plainfield from Macon, GA, my total cost was under $7 with shipping, good ole 3-day USPS.

Anything I buy through Amazon, if it doesn't say "Shipped by Amazon" I don't buy it. They are crazy efficient at getting items through THEIR system. It's when the item is direct shipped
from the seller is where it grinds to a halt.

My cousin drives for a rather large contracted USPS hauler, he says they have full loads going to Chicago and Milwaukee, and are actually bringing trailers back empty to Indianapolis.
He has mentioned more than once that there is no rhyme or reason as to why things are not moving.

 

[IndyBeerman]

I ordered a CD from a record shop in Chicago at the beginning of December. Here is the USPS route it took from Chicago to West Lafayette >>

View attachment 95109

You'd be surprised how optimized a lot of those crazy looking routes can be, especially with a very small package like a CD in a time of insane demand.Each of those crazy legs could have saved one entire truck load going in the "wrong" direction for all we know.

I blame the current issues with USPS delivery speed on their lack of scalability, likely due to their union contracts, not their overall routing strategy.

If you think that graphic showing it's route travel possibility saved any money at all. then I never want you in charge of anything involving logistics.

That graphic is a perfect illustration of people NOT caring or paying attention. No reason for why it was routed like that other than pure negligence. This is the reason for the hub and spoke system.

Some idiot placed a entire bin in a trailer and did not check it's destination to prevent misshipment.

Trust me, there was no money saving that took place of a package going from Chicago, to DesMoines, to Cincinnati and finally to Indianapolis. The question is, how much more other than that package went for a ride around the region.

The "It's not my problem" is the real problem. At my first beer distributor, we had two motto's, The first was "Setting the standard for service", and the second one was "If you see a problem, YOU own it."

It 's beyond time to start making USPS accountable for operating at a loss.

They definitely need to fire some of their leadership, get better program for their computer system. No wonder they are broke. Maybe its time to let them go bye bye and contract US mail delivery to private companies.

 

[maxwelhse]

If you think that graphic showing it's route travel possibility saved any money at all. then I never want you in charge of anything involving logistics.

Good news for you is that me, or any other human, never will be in charge of anything on that scale. It's all automated. Humans can't do the math fast enough, or at all.

I'm the unfortunate product of having studied linear programming. This is the super fun mathematical science of determining the most correct answer on a line that has an infinite number of correct answers. In that picture you see the results of at least 5 variables to ship 1 package. How many packages went with it on each leg with their own groups of variables? Where were they going? When did they have to get there? What equipment was available? What's the current price of the fuel for each of those options? What is the staffing at the various destinations? And on and on it goes.

There are billions variables to account for in large scale shipping operations, on a daily basis, and they're all the right answer. It's all of those small decisions that determine the most correct of the right answers. Looks like for the parcel in question, that bizzaro chain of events was the most correct answer that day.

I know that route looks crazy, and you're freely welcome to think I'm a total idiot (and you're almost certainly right about that in general), but that's how it works. It's not a local delivery route that runs the same materials to the same places almost every day. On a much smaller scale, if someone suddenly quadrupled the size of your old beer delivery route, but didn't add equipment or staff, what would you do? You'd probably end up with some crazy looking routes based on customer priority and who was willing to pay for it. In the case of shipping unique packages, it's not like they can just share the load and give everyone a little less beer. All they can do is give people a little less speed (which they have).

I still believe USPS' primary issue is likely one of staffing and their inability to scale it quickly.

ETA: I'm freely willing to venture that USPS has some complete abomination of a government sponsored software package that simply doesn't know what to do when the volume increases by 400%. But, it seems during regular times it works fine.

 

[bwframe]

Good info on Amazon. Is it the "Ships from Amazon" designation near the Buy Now button that indicates Amazon will be the shipping carrier?

 

[4651feeder]

Good info on Amazon. Is it the "Ships from Amazon" designation near the Buy Now button that indicates Amazon will be the shipping carrier?

That's a good probability if one lives within the same day/next day delivery range of an Amazon Distribution Facility/warehouse, but not always. I say that because the small parcel shipping companies and USPS are still hauling trailer loads from Amazon points like Whitestown and Plainfield for delivery on a daily basis, so somebody somewhere that ordered "Ships From Amazon" is still not getting delivery by Amazon.

 

[maxwelhse]

My package finally arrived... 23 days in transit!

Sadly, I don't think that makes me the thread winner.

 

[DadSmith]

I ordered from Sugar Creek Brass he Shipped the next day or darn close to it.

December 19, 2020, 5:57 pm
Departed Post Office
CRAWFORDSVILLE, IN 47933

It's somewhere outside of Crawfordsville.

December 23, 2020
In Transit, Arriving Late
Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility.

I really think the pony express would have gotten it to me faster on horse back.

This has nothing to do with SCB. It's that darn USPS.

 

[bwframe]

 

[Ballstater98]