No wonder it costs so much to ship stuff! Talk about Stupid!

[MTboatguy]

As I posted the other day, my Dish Receiver died the other day and I had to order a replacement, which they said would be 3 day shipping, so I took a look tonight to see where it was, talk about dumb business models.

Billings, MT, United States	10/26/2014	7:41 P.M.	Departure Scan
	10/26/2014	2:15 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	10/25/2014	5:34 A.M.	Departure Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	10/24/2014	12:34 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Billings, MT, United States	10/24/2014	7:58 A.M.	Departure Scan
	10/24/2014	6:59 A.M.	Arrival Scan
Commerce City, CO, United States	10/24/2014	5:33 A.M.	Departure Scan
	10/24/2014	3:49 A.M.	Arrival Scan
	10/24/2014	3:10 A.M.	Departure Scan
Commerce City, CO, United States	10/23/2014	11:12 P.M.	Origin Scan
United States	10/23/2014	7:10 P.M.	Order Processed: Ready for UPS

They shipped the thing to Billings, then to Louisville, then back to Billings!

 

[bassman284]

Well hey! Those planes were making those trips regardless.

 

[GA_Boater]

UPS Ground would have been faster, a day shorter. UPS air is always going through Louisville and Fed Ex Air is always going through Memphis.

How about this one. I managed a convenience store for a large chain located in the Southeast. Every Tuesday morning we had to send the previous weeks sales reports, etc. to the home office. The deal was set up using UPS Overnight, which means it was by air. So the Brown guy picked it up at the store, drove it to the distribution center, from there to the airport, went to Louisville, then it flew to the home office city and the Brown dropped it off at HQ the next morning. My store was in the Atlanta suburbs and HQ in Atlanta. The outbound truck to the airport, Atlanta, drove within a 1/2 mile of the co. HQ, about 25 miles away from the store. About a hundred stores in the Atlanta area were doing the same thing. I understood the stores in other states, but I always wondered about the ten or so stores that were within a stones throw of HQ because they did the same UPS Overnight. :facepalm:

 

[joed]

The packages need to be sorted so they go to the sort center. The guy on the truck doesn't do any sorting.

 

[redneck joe]

I'm in Supply Chain with my company and I've been in the FedEx Memphis facility during 'the shift'. Insider tour of the overnight operations and it is truly amazing what happens there in a couple hours.

While there will be a few times of the OP's experience overall it is probably less than .0000005%.

 

[MTboatguy]

Not talking about FedEx, I have had many packages shipped via FedEx and have never seen this, in addition when it was delivered, it was at my mailbox location, which is over 2 miles from my house. When I asked the delivery guy about that, he said he was told that if it is over a certain address number, just drop it off at the mailbox location and leave a notice, during the winter, I could understand because of snow and ice, but it ain't snowed this year yet! The road is still clear! UPS has delivered here many times in the past!

 

[MTboatguy]

The packages need to be sorted so they go to the sort center. The guy on the truck doesn't do any sorting.

I am not blaming the delivery guy, I am amazed at the delivery company, how much fuel does it take to fly from Billings, MT to Louisville, KY and back again? Every single dollar spent of fuel is reflected in how much we pay for a package to be delivered. Heck, I could have drove to Billings and picked it up before the airplane got there for the turn around, reminds me of what I griped about when I was in the military!

 

[four winns 214]

The journey appears to be a simple matter of a mis-directed package. The daily UPS package volume is such that if they're 99.5% effective, something like 15,000 package don't make service. Look up their financials. The company moves goods world wide and makes money like they own a printing plant. They must have some idea of what they're doing.

 

[bassman284]

The journey appears to be a simple matter of a mis-directed package. The daily UPS package volume is such that if they're 99.5% effective, something like 15,000 package don't make service. Look up their financials. The company moves goods world wide and makes money like they own a printing plant. They must have some idea of what they're doing.

Ayup, could be something as simple as a mis-written zip code. FedEx, UPS, DHL, all of 'em sort by zip code. As long as you have the correct zip on the airbill, it'll get there.

Before I retired, I worked at a manufacturing plant supplying auto assembly plants. Best guess over 22 years I sent an average of 6 to 8 overnight packages a week. The vast majority arrived the next morning as planned unless we used Airborne, who could be very flaky, but we learned not to trust them.

About 8 or 1o years ago an assembly plant (in Detroit) found a defective component in one of our instrument panels. Potential for line shutdown. I called in a rework crew to be in the assembly plant at 6:00 am the next morning and boxed up replacement parts and sent the FedEx for delivery by 7:00 am local (6:00 am my time). At 5:40 am my time I got a call at home from our resident engineer telling me the FedEx truck had been there but didn't have the parts on it. I said a lot of unprintables and headed in to work. I got the airbill and tracked the shipment and it was in Louisville, KY - it was addressed to Sterling Heights, MI. I dialed up FedEx and was preparing to rip some butt. The guy I talked to was very helpful. He told me that the zip code on the airbill was somewhere out in the wilds of Kentucky and the local terminal was already redirecting it to SH, but sadly it wouldn't be there until the following morning.

Long story short, that mis-written zip code cost my plant almost $50,000 in line stoppage and rework.