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FedEx or UPS

From the 'receiver' end, I've found it pretty much depends on the driver. For years, we had a dependable UPS driver who showed up on time, etc. 'She ' transferred to a different route, and now packages are almost always late in the day, just dropped at the door with a cursory doorbell ring, and away they go........... FedEx in our area (my opinion) are the same, only worse.

What do your customers prefer?

Good luck, Ace

From: "Carla Fong" Subject: UPS or FedEx for shipping our product? Date: Friday, August 11, 2006 7:26 AM

Hi all -

This may be slightly off topic, but I'm looking for the group's collective wisdom about shipping finished goods (part of which is made of sheet metal, so there's the metal content)

I anticipate our cartons will be approximately an 18" cube and weigh about 50 pounds. The value in each package is approximately $6,000.

Shipments will be going only to business locations. Probably low volume of 2-5 per week.

Which carrier offers the best rate and most reliable delivery service?

Thanks in advance - My email is spam-trapped so replies to the list are appreciated, or else remove the two x's, the word 'spam' and one of the periods to email me.

Carla "The Pledge of Allegiance says '..with liberty and justice for all'. What part of 'all' don't you understand?" --- Rep. Pat Schroeder (D) Colorado

Reply to
Ace
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Fedex hands down. It's not even more expensive if you just fedex ground.

If you want to ship stuff in the area, just use three day economy. They deliver is just as fast as with the far more costly options. UPS lets your package sit around/get stolen/ruined to make sure it doesn't arrive faster than they guarantee (good luck with claims on being late with UPS).

I've never had fedex permanently lose a package. A few times the package dissapeared off the tracking system, but was delivered back to the sender.

UPS on the other hand is really good at losing or stealing your stuff.

The downside of Fedex is the billing can be questionable at times, like you may get hit with a random $3 pickup fee or something stupid like that. If you call up and say um, no, they remove it. The process of shipping fedex ground can be a pain in the ass as the manual method requires 900 sheets of this lame carbon copy paper. It still beats UPS, and is very cheap, even with extra insurance on expensive items.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

I've always printed shipping labels from MyFedEx... even when I was accessing the site via 19.2 kbps dialup. I can't imagine why anyone shipping more than a couple packages a month wouldn't have an account.

Reply to
Steve Ackman

Well, my experience has been just about the opposite of yours. (I'm in Texas, if that matters)

My problem with Fedex has been that they WILL NOT give me a price. They always tell me 'about' etc., etc.

This just doesn't help me when I'm trying to give a shipping cost to a prospective customer.

Also, I have found UPS to be very reliable, here.

Lewis.

******
Reply to
limeylew

You're in the field and need to ship parts now.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

My experience leads me to go with Fedex all the way. Like most people, I've used UPS for years and always thought of them as the go to people for sending anything. Not any more. It's not that UPS is unreliable or breaks things. No, I have no problem with that. My problem with UPS is that they are so slow it's ridiculous.

I'm on the west coast and I can't order anything east of Arizona and expect to get it in the same week even if I place an order on Monday. UPS never gets a delivery to me in five days or less. It's always more. They don't work weekends and Fedex does, which makes a big difference.

Here's a perfect example. I am supposed to get a holster sent to me from Florida tomorrow, Monday. If it goes by UPS ground I bet I won't get it for at least seven days. They won't have it here by Friday and so I'll have to wait for the weekend before they deliver it. If I can get the company to ship it by Priority Mail it will get here on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, and it'll cost less too. So I say, ship everything you can by USPS Priority Mail if possible. If that isn't possible then I go with Fedex and if I have no choice I use UPS.

Hawke

Reply to
Hawke

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