Rant on shipping

[California]

How does Amazon's warehousing system work?
I'm on the east coast and most of my orders tend to come from western states, you're in Calif. and you're getting orders shipped from Ohio.

Amazon seems to ship from your nearest regional warehouse nearly all the time, that's how they can offer same day delivery at extra cost. If its not in stock there, then they apparently ship from whatever warehouse has stock, absorbing the additional cost to meet their promised delivery date.

One strategy I often use is look at Amazon's alternate offerings of 'damaged packaging' (their abuse) or 'used-like new' (likely customer returns). There's another category, something like 'manual and charger missing, bare item only'. In my experience those descriptions are accurate.

For my paint they listed two weeks delay for new product or immediate shipment for 'damaged packaging' for a few $ less, so I chose that one. They wouldn't ship a leaking can and I don't care what the exterior box looks like. Likewise recently for a 6-pack of dish soap, discounted. Seals under the caps of the bottles were intact, that's all that mattered. Toilet paper similar, that could be really beat up without lessening the product quality. Their carton of house brand has five plastic covered 6-packs and that plastic would be intact.

Ordering anything but New is likely shipped from some random place, not the local warehouse.

 

[Doofy]

I have bought several things from the Warehouse including a new ceiling fan for the garage. It was in perfect condition. Just pay attention to their ratings.

 

[kenmbz]

Got my first USPS package to land in never never land in a while , will see if it shows up.
My Mailman, same guy for years, has been great, won;t fit in a mailbox, rubberband mail and drop both by covered front door.
UPS guy is usually the same person. Always drops off at front door.

Fedex is random, sometimes front door, sometimes by mailbox 1/4 mile from house on main road, sometimes by garbage cans. It's like a treasure hunt.
Last package was left at my neighbors house on the ground a few weeks ago. They just found it buried in the snow. Their driveway is about 100feet from mine.

Fedex has been awful, but on time, just good luck finding the package. Same complaints from my neighbors on Fedex.

 

[bcp]

With as many driveways I see marked with small, illegible, or no numbers, I'm surprised there are not more misdelivered packages.

Put up some large numbers easily visible from the road, from both directions, day and night.

Bruce

 

[kenmbz]

We have two houses on my private Road. Both house numbers in large reflective numbers on Mailboxes and on mail post.
House number lit up on rock by driveway and large stainless numbers on house.

Neighbor has large numbers on their mailbox too.
No one else misses this, have new amazon drivers all the time, always find my house, never lose packages during delivery.
Only Fedex.

 

[fried1765]

With as many driveways I see marked with small, illegible, or no numbers, I'm surprised there are not more misdelivered packages.

Put up some large numbers easily visible from the road, from both directions, day and night.

Bruce

It can be a bit confusing for new UPS/FedEx drivers at my place.
1730 is painted in 12" letters on the large white chimney, as that is the year the house was built.
Actual street address number is different, and is marked in 4" numbers at the doorway.

 

[Diggin It]

Blue Box store and the OrangePurple carrier says the order I placed Monday and was shipped yesterday will be here tomorrow. Any bets?

 

[user.69169]

I tell you some secrets.. Rock Auto is order amalgamator, not a warehouse. Dey take order and computer has closest stocking seller ship to you wid Rock label.
UPS & FedEx both in fulfillment business up to der chins. You order, company gets paid and releases delivery from closest fulfiller wid inventory.. FedEx is 5 seperate companies, Air, Freight, Ground and Home Delivery. Home delivery worst, all independent franchise owners scramblin to survive. Dey hirecouriers on per package and dey cheap. Absolutely no parcel swappin between companies so some days you get 3 different couriers. Fulfillment in background.

Sellers cut warehousing cost for flat percentage and make more money. Set up so seller never touches product, just process money & generate release tickets.

Second SECRET, data logger courier scans package wid is very good GPS. Terminal or post office can bring up screen and tell widin 4 feet where package was left. Post Office can click 1 more button and look at street view. Amazippy couriers pretty much all independent renting truck from Amazippy. Dey use personal phone wid Amazapp to take picture of dropped package for proof of delivery. Amazoom still rolling out fulfillment and courier system so dey can run wid minimum employees and maximum contractors.

Pitney Bowes got big division of company now in fulfillment & tracking too. Dey get near instant notification of parcels from Post Office.


Less you got inside emails, you just another lost parcel.

 

[goeduck]

Amazon set up for a Last Mile delivery center in nearby Bremerton WA this year. 950 stalls for vans. Facility at the end of a small airport here (Bremerton National Airport)

 

[ultrarunner]

Sounds like our carrier has been slacking, we still get mail for the previous owners (who moved 8-9 years ago).
Must be that they are too busy opening every box that comes in via Media Mail and complaining that I wrote "return to sender, moved 8 years ago" to update their edit book.

Aaron Z

Mom received a postcard that said it has been 31 years since your last dental visit... the kicker is the name on the postcard was not Mom but previous owner!

I was taught to use the notation "Care Of" when sending mail to a non-resident...

 

[reb]

Mom received a postcard that said it has been 31 years since your last dental visit... the kicker is the name on the postcard was not Mom but previous owner!

I was taught to use the notation "Care Of" when sending mail to a non-resident...

That might have saved me some hassle a few years ago. I sent a check to a name I didn't recognize, but to the PO Box of the woman who sent me the bill for the fruit I ordered. The bureaucrat who runs our local post office held that letter until I happened to ask about it. The same bureaucrat puts mail in my box addressed to someone else, but with my box number.

 

[Jstpssng]

To explain why some emails are received saying item mailed when they aren't mailed yet. I mail many items daily. I put them in my mailbox and the mailman picks them up when he passes. On Saturdays he passes about 11 AM. When I get orders online I usually mail them within 30 minutes but if the orders come on Saturday after 11 the mailman will not pick them up till about 4 PM on Monday. They sit in the post office to be scanned until Tuesday and then tracking marks them picked up. When they pay with PayPal, then PayPal will email them as soon as I print the label that they were mailed so they might get the letter saying they were mailed on Saturday but tracking will show they were picked up on Tuesday even though I mailed them 30 minutes after I received the order.

That's one reason. The other apparently is because if the vendor lists it as "shipped" they can take the money from my CC. It's not at all uncommon to see an order marked "shipped" which doesn't actually appear at the depot for a week or more. i.E., place an order on Saturday the 3rd; it might set in que until Monday the 12th before actually getting shipped. That's one reason that I sometimes use PayPal... somebody took my money for repair parts for an old outboard, then I never heard another word. I can be pretty tolerant about waiting for things... until you take my money. Then I want something in return. At least give me an actual shipping date; if you can't do that. take the time to answer my emails. That particular vendor was probably a small back room type business and was just swamped with orders; but when they didn't even acknowledge my emails two weeks after taking my money, I went to my higher power... PayPal. My order shipped the day after that and all was good, yet with a little communication they could have done what they are good at, and I would have known that I just had to be patient.

 

[Doofy]

Today we received a Christmas Card from a good friend that forgot to add our names to the address. It was just addressed to Mr and Mrs.

 

[Jstpssng]

Today we received a Christmas Card from a good friend that forgot to add our names to the address. It was just addressed to Mr and Mrs.

That's one advantage of having mail service which is still delivered by dog sled Sorry, I couldn't resist. Sometimes the typical stereotypes are too hard to pass up.

 

[goeduck]

Today we received a Christmas Card from a good friend that forgot to add our names to the address. It was just addressed to Mr and Mrs.

I recall my Mom sending mail to her Mom (my grandmother) with just the Grandma's name, city and state. No street address or zip code. It always got there. But then it was a big family in a small MN town where nearly everyone was related and everyone knew everyone.

 

[3Ts]

When we lived in Florida we received a letter addressed to someone we did not know. The house number was wrong, but the street name and city were right. We were the only ones who lived on the street. All we could tell was that it was mailed from the New England area from the post mark. So ???
We opened the letter. From it's contents we were able to narrow down where it should have been addressed to, so we packaged up everything including the opened envelope and a letter explaining what we knew. We received a nice letter in reply thanking us for forwarding it and that we did indeed figure out the right address. Turns out it was her mom who was getting up in years and having trouble with places.

 

[Jstpssng]

Many years ago when I was a wee lad, I visited the post office for some reason. Business was in a lull, and I remember the postmaster showing me the letter which he was processing. It had all sorts of words in a foreign language, and he pointed to a foreign zip code while explaining that it was the only reason he was able to process it, otherwise it would have landed in the dead letters file.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've seen letters sent General Delivery and every trip to cabin included a post office stop... later, learned post office no longer holds indefinitely so stopped going.

We know the family two streets over... share house number and zip code and half of each respective street names...

Would think with same letter carrier it would be caught.

 

[goeduck]

I would think with technology that if a delivery person delivered a package to the wrong address it would set off alarms in the truck. With GPS they know where the truck is (in coverage areas) and they know the package delivery address. I would think if the two did not match, it would sound an alert.

 

[dragoneggs]

Amazon set up for a Last Mile delivery center in nearby Bremerton WA this year. 950 stalls for vans. Facility at the end of a small airport here (Bremerton National Airport)

quite an impressive facility. Will be flying 737s into that 'podunk' airport soon!