Why does FedEx suck so much for car part deliveries? (also, GRM sponsors, ship via another company!)

EDIT: Another FedEx berkeley-up today (13 January) where the box apparenty broke open (a FedEx box) and most of the stuff inside fell out. So they just taped it back up with only one remaining item and delivered it anyhow. Nice. 

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I generally try to get things shipped either UPS or USPS, but sometimes FedEx seems to be the only choice or the only reasonably-priced choice, especially for overseas stuff. And it always seems to be motorsports parts. Most other non-car sellers seem to go UPS or USPS (or Amazon's own stuff)

Anyhow, in the last two weeks, three FedEx shipments: 1) from Rockauto, part of an order where the rest was coming USPS. 2) from a UK motorsports distributor. 3) from another UK motorsports distributor.

1) Arrived a full three days after the other half of the order, even though it was coming from 2 states away. I could have ridden a bicycle to pick it up in less time than it took to arrive. Note that this was two days later than the original date listed on the shipping tracking number.

2) Made it across the ocean in just a couple days, and then for some reason sat in Kansas City for 3 days, then in Ohio someplace for another 3 days (meanwhile, I live in the Washington DC area). Box looked like it had gone through a World War 1 minefield along the way (thankfully, not anything breakable). 

3) Shipped a week ago. 6 days ago arrived at the airport outside London to be shipped out. Still sitting there today, according to FedEx, with no explanation, and no expected delivery date. This is a pair of coil springs, nothing large, crazy, or questionable regarding tariffs, etc....

Add this to at least a half-dozen other FedEx shipments this year from various places that were ALL late by days (one somehow sat at a FedEx transit warehouse 2 hours from me for 4 days before finally being trucked out). I haven't received a single FedEx shipment on time this year.

Meanwhile, UPS is almost always on time (at worst a day late occasionally) and USPS is actually early as much as on time (Including multipled packages from the UK as well) . I know COVID stuff has complicated things to some degree, but it only seems to affect FedEx. Even the under-fire USPS still manages to do its job. 

Anyhow, sorry for the vent.  Am I the only one who has this problem with FedEx?

FedEx consistently berkeleys up everything they touch. They basically never meet their delivery estimates, have lost packages for five days which eventually get delivered and regularly fail to leave packages at our door, rather sprinkle them liberally across the middle of our driveway about 100ft from our front door.

Nope.

we recently ordered my son two pairs of sneakers from an online retailer. The tracking showed two packages shipped on the same day, one arrived at my house two days later. The other one was missing for over week and the retailer provided a refund and we ordered a third pair. The missing ones arrived today, almost 2 weeks after the first pair, and the third pair is in transit. 

I also had auto parts a few weeks ago that had issues where they were supposed to arrive Tuesday, then it was Thursday, and finally they arrived the following Monday. 

A neighbor a couple houses down the street just stopped by and dropped off a box plainly addressed to me that had been delivered to her house instead of mine.  You guessed it--the shipper was Fedex.

We switched from UPS to FedEx last year. Costs are down, shipping times are considerably shorter (4 days faster to Atlanta!),customers are happier and the number of problem packages has not changed as far as I know. 

Sorry to spoil the party. 

I only have a problem with them once a year when the regular driver is on vacation, and only then if I have something on the way.  We have 2 streets in our subdivision and the substitute driver consistently delivers my packages to the house on the other street with the same number.

UPS drivers are UPS employees

USPS drivers are USPS employees, but may drive a USPS vehicle or their own vehicle

FedEx ground drivers are independent contractors.  Federal Express drivers are company employees.

In general i have seen Fedex to be the worst performing of the bunch. I prefer USPS over all of them, but I also vastly prefer UPS over Fedex over the way they handle/treat their drivers and employees, from what i've heard from them. I used to see Fedex and UPS drivers pretty frequently before Amazon started doing more of their own and we'd get to talking. UPS drivers seemed to have it the best, followed by USPS, followed by Fedex and now finally relieved of their crown of having the E36 M3tiest jobs by Amazon. But Amazon does generally get me my stuff a lot faster. 

FCP euro uses fedex. I've placed two orders from them, the first one was lost but they said it was delivered and the second one arrived two days after saying it was delivered. They suck

I usually just don't do business with someone who only ships thru FedEx......they are that bad.

They once delivered a guitar that was so broken apart that they refused to let me actually see it

My wife and I get deliveries of all kinds, from fedex, Buster Brown, and the US postal service... several every week. They all do good sometimes, and they all don't others. About the same all across the board. Still beats having to actually interact with the incompetent... er... general public!

I hear different about each from time to time, but my personal experence the all have their moments.

May be a local phenomena but we have packages out for delivery and then get "weather delay" with some of the nicest weather. Never have an issue with USPS or UPS here.

Keith Tanner said:

We switched from UPS to FedEx last year. Costs are down, shipping times are considerably shorter (4 days faster to Atlanta!),customers are happier and the number of problem packages has not changed as far as I know. 

Sorry to spoil the party. 

^^^^^^This! Around here UPS is the complete over-expensive crap service. I generally refuse to do service with a company that uses UPS. So many problems....

I quit ordering from Rockauto because all they use here is fedex and it's nothing but issues. The final screw up was them saying my address was invalid after they have delivered here (or 1st st or 3rd st too my house number) it cost me an extra 20 bucks to change the delivery address too my former employer and get the stuff delivered there since I didn't have time to drive too the ft Wayne hub. I'm biased towards usps but I know the local postmaster and have the least amount of issues via them.

My employer switched to fedex from UPS due to UPS's problems. They treated the drivers like crap and then their billing was terrible. Its been better with fedex, but fedex also has FAR more package screwups. Things getting lost for days, claims they couldnt find an address that we've been delivering to for years, weird nonsense stuff. 

My two cents worth is that they are all having growing pains. UPS showed up in a U-Haul the other day and our FEDX girl is in a Penske van.

Hi. Person who did final mile defect resolution for amazon customer service here. 
 

nearly all delivery issues beyond a trailer fire, accident, etc are final mile problems. Generally There are two broad issue types.  The first is the package being missorted to the wrong route. This is annoying but usually is just a day delay.  
 

Almost all other ones are generally related the the actual driver who covers your route.  Can't find the address, not putting it in the right place.  Incorrect scanning.  Etc etc. etc. 

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

 

They once delivered a guitar that was so broken apart that they refused to let me actually see it

That's actually good service and what they are supposed to do. 

Almost all other ones are generally related the the actual driver who covers your route.  Can't find the address, not putting it in the right place.  Incorrect scanning.  Etc etc. etc. 

Yeah, it's like being some kind of sorter in a warehouse, except the warehouse is a chunk of a whole city and you don't really get paid more. At least the people doing it out of their own vehicles aren't worried about their door falling off like one of my Fedex drivers.  

One thing to consider is that FedEx has been running approximately 15% above capacity for the last few months.  They can't get any new drivers because no one wants to work.  About 6 weeks ago my driver told me they had hired 8 guys, hoping 2 might last.  The biggest issues I've had are with Home Delivery drivers.  The screwy thing about FedEx is that you have 4 separate branches - FedEx Freight, Express, Ground and Home Delivery.  All of my goods ship out on Ground, but most will end up getting routed to Home Delivery for final delivery.  As Fueled by Caffeine said, most of the issues here are going to be the final mile problems, they didn't bother checking the address, name, street, just plain didn't care and needed the package off the truck.  Home Delivery is the red headed stepchild, and it shows.  As a shipper, FedEx is much better than UPS, better rates, and service.  My two busiest months this year I paid FedEx over $100k, and that didn't include the stuff I send out 3rd party for Bass Pro/Cabela's.  They work with me so much better than UPS ever did, and I've got a better line of communication if something goes wrong.  Considering my volume and that less than 1/2 of 1% has an issue that I ever hear about, I'm good with them.  

Seems pretty clear that from the business side of FedEx is preferred but from the consumer side it is not.......

Kind of reminds me of American Express in all those years of working retail. Consumers love American Express because of the rewards, but businesses hate it because of the high fees. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

 

They once delivered a guitar that was so broken apart that they refused to let me actually see it

That's actually good service and what they are supposed to do. 

How about the part where they said they delivered it just fine and tried screwing me out of a replacement?

I had to cancel Imperfect Foods because FedEx couldn't deliver it anywhere near on time, or even to my house. Same driver each time, he just didn't want to deliver to my house.

They literally have never once delivered a parcel on time in the last 3 years. Granted that's a whole 5 packages but still.....UPS never has a problem.

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Seems pretty clear that from the business side of FedEx is preferred but from the consumer side it is not.......

Kind of reminds me of American Express in all those years of working retail. Consumers love American Express because of the rewards, but businesses hate it because of the high fees. 

Remember that if a customer has a problem with a delivery, the business is the one who hears about it. The American consumer is a delicate creature who will not accept any variation from perfection. 

However, businesses do see the aggregate result and not a series of individual ones. So if 99.5% of packages arrive on time and safe, that's what the business realizes. The 0.5% are what the consumer remembers if it happens to them. 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Seems pretty clear that from the business side of FedEx is preferred but from the consumer side it is not.......

 

Yeah.. Which FedEX is everyone talking about?  Express, Home, Smartpost?..  All different drivers.. All different handling and delivery methods.

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

the broken guitar needs to be handled that way to ensure its covered by Fedex.. The driver may or may not have broken it, but delivering it and then having you deal with the fall out is poor service.

Sounds like you have a driver issue.. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

the broken guitar needs to be handled that way to ensure its covered by Fedex.. The driver may or may not have broken it, but delivering it and then having you deal with the fall out is poor service.

 

Sounds like you have a driver issue.. 

You are misunderstanding me. They saw that the guitar was broken, didn't deliver it and when he took it back to the hub they tried to cover it up and say it was delivered just fine. Both of these showed up on tracking info.

They then tried to tell me that it was delivered and they had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about and that I had broke the guitar. The company I bought it thru sent me another guitar without ever getting paid for the first one.

This is also multiple drivers, not just one. The imperfect foods one was just one driver 3 times, I didn't write that clearly