Sick of shipping time.

Whats up with bargain fittings not offering Fed Ex or UPS?placed an order Friday that i had to ship USPS because that was my only option and frankly is always my last option.Their tracking info is useless and I feel like i would be better off with a magic 8 ball.Second gripe is Duda Diesel not shipping my package until the 17th and having to call them and someone messing up on their end.No sir you put it down as USPS(SWMBO watched me punch it Fed Ex) not Fed Ex but we will change it free of charge..Hmmm,yup i love USPS its always my choice WTF!.

This would not bother me so much if i did not have a double brew day planned for Saturday but this is horrible.Hope is that i get everything before friday so i can test my flow rate on the plate chiller instead of doing it brew day...Just had to vent

I ordered from bargain fittings last friday...it shipped same day and i received it on monday. shipped priority 2 day usps...i doubt it would have come any faster through fedex or ups. maybe what you ordered is OOS...call them.

Which USPS option was the package shipped under? I had a very bad experience ordering from Ebay. I bought a vintage guitar and there was no option for shipping. It came USPS and the seller received an 'estimate' of 2-8 days. Turns out the seller used teh cheapest USPS option- I think standard? And on the site it says 2-8 days but delivery is not garaunteed- it's only an estimate.

They give you an ETA of 2-8 business days which sounds great. After 3 weeks I thought the package was lost. I called on the 8th day and they said I had to wait 3 weeks for the package to be considered lost. After 3 weekes the clarified 21 business days. I got it on the 20th business day. For what its worth the tracking was spot on- it just sat forever and I thought they had lost it. And they delivered when the fine print says they will. The ETA is not garaunteed. That's where they get you.

It went USPS priority 1-3 days but nothing yet.

That's not good. If they don't show it as shipped you could contact Bargain Fittings. Mayb its back ordered do to the holidays- thats me speculating. If USPS picked it up, it wouldn't hurt to call them on it. The person I talked to was friendly and pretty knowledgable. She said to never use standard for anything important because the delivery is not garaunteed. 1-3 days is though I beleive.

Ever since Amazon started shipping with local carriers, almost everything that isn't prime comes as usps, and I can always add a day or two on either end. Even if it shows as at the local office by morning, it won't come until the next day. I've even had cards in the box indicating "could not deliver, weather", when it was just raining. Lazy. This is a service that should be privatized.

UPS and FedEx are very good at scheduling and distribution. I can guarantee it'll show up on the truck at 6pm if it doesn't make the morning.

I'm in a similar boat. I have holes in two kettles waiting on supplies that should have been here by now, but different supplier, usps though. Kettles with holes are annoyingly useless, hehe.

I love supporting the locals, but it's hard to resist Prime shipping.

Amazon Prime has given everyone crazy expectations of getting things shipped quickly and cheaply. Its ridiculous what they can do.

geer537 said:

Which USPS option was the package shipped under? I had a very bad experience ordering from Ebay. I bought a vintage guitar and there was no option for shipping. It came USPS and the seller received an 'estimate' of 2-8 days. Turns out the seller used teh cheapest USPS option- I think standard? And on the site it says 2-8 days but delivery is not garaunteed- it's only an estimate.

They give you an ETA of 2-8 business days which sounds great. After 3 weeks I thought the package was lost. I called on the 8th day and they said I had to wait 3 weeks for the package to be considered lost. After 3 weekes the clarified 21 business days. I got it on the 20th business day. For what its worth the tracking was spot on- it just sat forever and I thought they had lost it. And they delivered when the fine print says they will. The ETA is not garaunteed. That's where they get you.

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What was the guitar and did it come in OK? (intact, no obvious throwing around ETC?)

For the OP, I never expect anything on time after Veterans Day. The holiday ordering / shipment season begins then and every warehouse and shipping company is going flat out 24/7 to get things out for the holiday. Almost every company that ships stuff extends the shipping timeframe around this time of year.

pelipen said:

Ever since Amazon started shipping with local carriers, almost everything that isn't prime comes as usps, and I can always add a day or two on either end. Even if it shows as at the local office by morning, it won't come until the next day. I've even had cards in the box indicating "could not deliver, weather", when it was just raining. Lazy. This is a service that should be privatized.

UPS and FedEx are very good at scheduling and distribution. I can guarantee it'll show up on the truck at 6pm if it doesn't make the morning.

I'm in a similar boat. I have holes in two kettles waiting on supplies that should have been here by now, but different supplier, usps though. Kettles with holes are annoyingly useless, hehe.

I love supporting the locals, but it's hard to resist Prime shipping.

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If they dropped off the card I don't think it's them being lazy, as much as trying to protect your package from sitting out in the rain and potentially having the contents ruined when the box soaks through

Yeah, I know what you mean about USPS. I placed two orders that Shipped Dec 2nd via '2-Day Priority Mail' insured. One arrived on the 7th and the other on the 11th! No tracking updates online either or explanations for delay. Speaking to USPS was a joke and they could have cared less. Pretty disappointing, no wonder that are bankrupt.

Good luck,
Robert
GypsyBrew

Have patience... tis the season for shipping delays and confusion.

geer537 said:

...And on the site it says 2-8 days but delivery is not garaunteed...

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Did you mean that it's not guaranteed to arrive in 2-8 days, or they won't guarantee it will arrive at all

two_hearted said:

Amazon Prime has given everyone crazy expectations of getting things shipped quickly and cheaply. Its ridiculous what they can do.

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MoreBeer has only reinforced this. i ordered late on monday night (like 10 pm or later), i received the box today (wednesday). that new east coast shipping center/warehouse ROCKS.

I work as a salesman/driver/warehouse for a packaging company and this is the worst i have seen vendors and shipping times.We usually have same day shipping or next day and rarely three day.Opening a small business may be hard but when you rely on USPS as the only shipping option it is just bad business.Save the customer the headache of tracking down a package and you will probably gain three more in the process..It really is that simple.If I were to treat my customers orders this way on a consistent basis i would not have any, but hey its USPS they have no reason to pander or please anyone.

On the flip side, plan ahead for your brewing so that every order you place isn't an emergency. You're talking about my direct competitor, but there are plenty of reasons to use USPS. 99% of the time, the boxes make it anywhere in the U.S. in 2 days and the price is better than anything UPS or Fedex can offer. People want to pay a few bucks for shipping and it just doesn't work when Fedex wants $18.

I seem to have had the opposite shipping experiences from most people. Out of thousands of packages over the years, I've never had a package delayed using USPS, and only had one lost package. The lost item was insured, and it wasn't a hassle at all to collect the insurance. The USPS priority mail has also been extremely fast for me, and incredibly cheap compared to every other option. The tracking isn't great, but it's improved a lot over the past few years.

I've had countless problems with UPS. Yes, they have great tracking, but I'd rather the item arrive on time and undamaged than know exactly where it is while it's getting delayed by days, and smashed to smithereens. I'd say ~6/10 times I'm expecting a UPS delivery it comes at least a day later than the tracking estimate. Sometimes the tracking shows the package going out for delivery early in the morning two, three, or four consecutive days before it finally arrives, and it always arrives after 6pm. Amazon has extended my prime membership several times because prime shipments going through UPS didn't make it within the 2 day window. They've also completely smashed a couple of my packages, and it was a nightmare trying to get them to do anything about it.

JuanMoore said:

I seem to have had the opposite shipping experiences from most people.

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well, this is a thread for complaints. UPSP delivers millions of packages a day - do we hear a million "worked great"? nope, you only hear from the <1% that unfortunately experience a screw-up. online forums should never be considered representative samples.

USPS Priority is about the same cost (or slightly cheaper) as UPS/FedEx Ground. I generally receive packages via Priority in 2 days or less, regardless of origin. With UPS Ground I never receive anything in less than a week, regardless of origin. FedEx Ground is a crapshoot, sometimes it arrives in 3 or 4 days, sometimes 2 weeks. FedEx Home Delivery is always over a week and there is always an issue. I choose USPS Priority every single time. I've had good results with UPS 2 Day through Amazon Prime, but I'm not willing to pay the premium for 2 Day any other time.

Anecdotally, I once had a shipment coming my way via UPS Ground from downtown L.A., about an hour and a half south of me. The package went through 3 different sort facilities (one of which is two hours north of me, it literally drove past me to go to that sort facility) and arrived 10 days after it was shipped. This seems to be the norm for UPS Ground, at least around here.

There was a time not so long ago when the standard stated line regarding shipping was "Allow 4 to 6 weeks for processing and delivery."

You don't have it too tough.

It's funny how many different people have such different opinions of shipping options. If USPS is an option, I always choose that first. UPS ground, you won't get it until day 5. I had something shipped from Wisconsin once, roughly 150 miles from me, it got to UPS facility the next day, sat there for 3 days before it got to the local distribution, then my house after that. Seems to me they try to push your hand into paying for 2 day or next day by making sure ground takes at least 5 days no matter what. Fed Ex is always my last choice as even when you sign the paper to leave the package, they still don't leave the package.

Never had a problem with priority mail, always arrives when it's supposed to.

Bobby_M said:

On the flip side, plan ahead for your brewing so that every order you place isn't an emergency. You're talking about my direct competitor, but there are plenty of reasons to use USPS. 99% of the time, the boxes make it anywhere in the U.S. in 2 days and the price is better than anything UPS or Fedex can offer. People want to pay a few bucks for shipping and it just doesn't work when Fedex wants $18.

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Sorry Bob not trying to slam your business at all just trying to vent a little. Received my plate yesterday and the fittings will arrive today.

sweetcell said:

well, this is a thread for complaints. UPSP delivers millions of packages a day - do we hear a million "worked great"? nope, you only hear from the <1% that unfortunately experience a screw-up. online forums should never be considered representative samples.

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This can go the opposite direction also.Four years ago i purchased a Hot point stove on clearance at Home Depot the reviews were 75% negative.People were saying it cooked uneven in the oven,the lcd broke in the first month and it was horrible in general.Well four years later and over 140 gallons of full rolling boil home brew she is a workhorse.Sometimes its just user error.

The company I work for uses UPS for all shipping. Our distribution center is about 2 hours south of where I live. Customers often will receive standard shipped items in 2 days and sometimes the next day if they order before 11. That said I normally plan on 8 days+ for anything I order from any other company.

I will say what annoys me is when I order and it takes 5 days for a company to process my order and ship it. If I order on the weekend I understand Monday maybe Tuesday. But, Thurs or Friday just is too long.

krackin said:

There was a time not so long ago when the standard stated line regarding shipping was "Allow 4 to 6 weeks for processing and delivery."

You don't have it too tough.

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That was, and still is, only when ordering things you see on TV.

As a personal policy, I refuse to buy anything that was on TV. Actually, I avoid them like the plague.

jrgtr42 said:

What was the guitar and did it come in OK? (intact, no obvious throwing around ETC?)

.

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It was 1965 Gretsch hollow body bass. Had sone grounding issues and a brace was loose but overall fine. Neck wasn't broke

JBOGAN said:

Second gripe is Duda Diesel not shipping my package until the 17th and having to call them and someone messing up on their end.No sir you put it down as USPS(SWMBO watched me punch it Fed Ex) not Fed Ex but we will change it free of charge..Hmmm,yup i love USPS its always my choice WTF!.

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JBogan, I wanted to apologize for the inconvenience you experienced getting your Duda Chiller. I went through the emails regarding your order, and from what I can ascertain the order was placed on Friday night, the 13th. The shipping method selected was 'standard,' which is an option we provide at a slightly cheaper rate then fedex ground where we normally ship fedex but will sometimes ship USPS Priority if the product can go in a flat rate box. It saves us some money on these orders (and 99% of the time its gets there in the same 2-3 days, even faster if going to the West Coast or Alaska/Hawaii).

When you called on Tuesday, the girl answered the phone and said they would get your ordered changed to Fedex didn't realize at the time that you were referencing an order from Friday, she got the impression it was an order from the night before. So she sent emails off saying to change it to fedex (as we were going to send yours priority) only to then discover it had already been shipped on Monday.

This is where it got complicated. One of our associates called the post office to put a hold on the package (it had not even been scanned in yet, they take shipments from us by the pallet so it was sitting in one of their terminals). We also then realized that if it had already gone out then USPS would certainly be faster, so we needed to know if you wanted fedex due thinking it would be quicker or just a personal distaste for the USPS. Natural next step would be to call you back. Unfortunately, your order had neither a phone number or an email address on it. We give customers the option to leave those fields blank, and you had, and so we had no way to call you back. So after deliberation the decision was made to call the post office back and go ahead and send it. However, it being the week before Christmas and an item they had put off to the side not scanned in, they didn't get around to it until the 17th.


So in the end we refunded your shipping charges. I can't really see it as anyone's fault - not ours, not yours, not even USPS's. But it was Christmas, and you didn't receive your product until well after the date it was supposed to arrive, so we refunded (though we had no way to tell you we did).

The lesson learned, for all here: when ordering something online, please, please include a phone number. No internet companies make any money selling phone numbers anymore, I assure you Facebook already sold it

IslandLizard said:

That was, and still is, only when ordering things you see on TV.

As a personal policy, I refuse to buy anything that was on TV. Actually, I avoid them like the plague.

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Really? Just for giggles, when were you born? Do you think that is when commerce started?

I ship a ton of stuff usps, and it is 2-5 days first class from Ohio to almost anywhere in the continental US. Pretty good in my book.

My complaint isn't normally about USPS. It's about the crappy half-baked service by FedEx and UPS that hand off to USPS. That usually adds an extra day or two (at least) to my orders. If I"m getting something UPS or FedEx directly, I've never had a problem. I've only had one problem with USPS Priority Mail. They said it would take two days to ship a package to me in Georgia from New York. It took four. The rest of the time, USPS is just as reliable as UPS or FedEx. Only when it gets handed off to USPS from FedEx or UPS do I have a problem, normally.

I cannot stand USPS service and pretty much refuse to order from companies that only offer them as a shipping option. Couple of things I've dealt with just this year:

-Ordered expensive print that had a giant yellow stickers saying "DO NOT BEND!" Find it folded up and crammed into my mailbox.

-Had very expensive camera equipment being shipped to me. Specifically request "Signature Required" but they left on my porch for anyone to steal (had their tracking been worth a damn I would have been home to receive it).

-They put a business check for several thousand dollars in a neighboring businesses mailbox (I also get their mail constantly despite it being properly addressed).

-Wife ordered fancy knitting needles and some sweatshirt defuzzer thingy. Package looks like it had been run over and sure enough the knitting needles were all bent and the defuzzer thingy was in a million peices.

-For the last 3 days (X-Mas Eve, yesterday and today) their tracking has said my stainless steel dryhoppers that were ordered for me for X-Mas were "out for delivery." Still haven't shown up yet.

In every single case they have literally done NOTHING to make up for it, not even offering up an apology. Thankfully when it came to the damaged items the companies that we ordered from were more than happy to replace the damaged items but it is ridiculous that those companies have to foot the bill for the USPS incompetency.

I should also note that at least for my house, the regular mailman is a nice dude and we chat it up all the time so it isn't like my mailman hates me. For my business, I don't know what the hell that persons problem is but after multiple complaints about them mixing up our mail with other businesses it still happens constantly.

opiate82 said:

I cannot stand USPS service and pretty much refuse to order from companies that only offer them as a shipping option. Couple of things I've dealt with just this year:

-Ordered expensive print that had a giant yellow stickers saying "DO NOT BEND!" Find it folded up and crammed into my mailbox.

-Had very expensive camera equipment being shipped to me. Specifically request "Signature Required" but they left on my porch for anyone to steal (had their tracking been worth a damn I would have been home to receive it).

-They put a business check for several thousand dollars in a neighboring businesses mailbox (I also get their mail constantly despite it being properly addressed).

-Wife ordered fancy knitting needles and some sweatshirt defuzzer thingy. Package looks like it had been run over and sure enough the knitting needles were all bent and the defuzzer thingy was in a million peices.

-For the last 3 days (X-Mas Eve, yesterday and today) their tracking has said my stainless steel dryhoppers that were ordered for me for X-Mas were "out for delivery." Still haven't shown up yet.

In every single case they have literally done NOTHING to make up for it, not even offering up an apology. Thankfully when it came to the damaged items the companies that we ordered from were more than happy to replace the damaged items but it is ridiculous that those companies have to foot the bill for the USPS incompetency.

I should also note that at least for my house, the regular mailman is a nice dude and we chat it up all the time so it isn't like my mailman hates me. For my business, I don't know what the hell that persons problem is but after multiple complaints about them mixing up our mail with other businesses it still happens constantly.

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Your issues all boil down to the individual carrier/local office. That can be a problem with any service. Around here the FedEx carriers and local depot are despicable and I will do anything to avoid them. At my previous apartment the local PO and mail carrier were awful and FedEx and UPS weren't too bad. It really boils down to the actual people that staff the local offices and do the actual delivering. If you are having issues with your fragile shipments being handled poorly by your mail carrier you need to call your local Post Office and speak to someone about it. If they don't address it you need to go higher up the chain.

Awhile ago I bought a great little flashlight that is really bright. It can be used as a tactical light on a firearm bright. It runs on a single AA battery, which was what made me want it.

I got lucky and it was on sale w/ free shipping sp I got 3 @ 3.29 each.

The shipping originally stated 10-14 days delivery. I thought I would have it in no time. So I checked the tracking number and learned it was coming from China via China post.

Nearly 60 days later I got them and they are my new favorite flashlights. I was getting "please review this item" emails before I ever had them.