Anyone else have issues with FedEx when purchasing from Sweetwater?

[MultiScaleMale]

I usually get items on time. Things can get backed up around the holidays however. I don't know if it's still true, but around Christmas UPS would convert almost everyone to delivery drivers. If you're a programmer. Congrats. You're now a delivery driver and you use your own vehicle to make deliveries. But that was from someone that worked there over ten years ago. Also, just want to make sure that OP realizes that two-day doesn't mean day one starts today. If I order on a Monday, Wednesday is day two. And that's if you make the order cutoff for that day. Miss the FedEX pickup and tomorrow is day zero.

 

[Dominic D]

Nope. FedEx and DHL are the only ones I’ve never had a problem with.

 

[Jhengsman]

I ship stuff out (small items) as well as receive stuff somewhat regularly, and have noticed a few things...

Ever since Covid came, shipping delivery drivers are no longer required to collect signatures on residential deliveries no matter what the package says, and we probably shouldn't expect that to change any time soon. Good insurance is key (advice from a precious metals dealer). Also, delivering to a business address, or holding at a shippers office might be preferable.

When busy sales companies that do a lot of "free shipping" do their shipping, it can be a fairly large pickup, and things may get stuck in queues along the way, sometimes for days. Also, "free" ground shipping is done at the lowest possible cost, so priority wise, those items get processed after everything else by the shipping company, and then take the slowest way. This seems to me to be more pronounced at UPS and Fedex than at USPS. I think this and the "covid excuse" is why things going UPS or Fedex seem to initially take an extra day now, it's because they can.

USPS sometimes has a problem just getting the initial acceptance done. I've seen stuff I've ordered from a high volume ebayer sit for over a week at a post office "waiting to be accepted" which I think is just scan and put in the right bin. Since Covid came this issue has been much worse, but now seems to be much better than it was a year ago; I haven't had an issue with it lately.

Where I am in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles), I prefer USPS for speed and Fedex is my last choice due to past delivery issues. My regular UPS driver is the best though.

One thing about living on the left coast, is it seems that so may places that want to send UPS ground are on the other coast, which generally means it takes a week if everything goes well. USPS can usually get the same package here in 3 days at about the same price, depending on the size and weight of the package. Larger items like basses and (empty) racks are still best via UPS for me here.

That is probably a combination of the shipper not preparing a manifest so the USPS letter carrier or clerk scans one barcode upon acceptance instead of every piece when he has to be elsewhere to finish delivering instead of bring streets back undelivered that day or the window clerk has a line of customers waiting. And the letter carrier not being properly trained as new carriers are in a pick up the rifle of a fallen comrade attack training plan. They focus so much on delivery without knowing how to change the scanner to accept a piece. So hopefully when it hits the first plant the first record of a scan shows

 

[75Ric]

I ordered a new set of strings from Sweetwater on Sunday and received them yesterday. No problems with delivery.

 

[genesound]

That is probably a combination of the shipper not preparing a manifest so the USPS letter carrier or clerk scans one barcode upon acceptance instead of every piece when he has to be elsewhere to finish delivering instead of bring streets back undelivered that day or the window clerk has a line of customers waiting. And the letter carrier not being properly trained as new carriers are in a pick up the rifle of a fallen comrade attack training plan. They focus so much on delivery without knowing how to change the scanner to accept a piece. So hopefully when it hits the first plant the first record of a scan shows

Yes, I believe at least one held up delivery to me was a manifest type issue from a bulk shipment, but it was held up over a week at the originating PO waiting for "acceptance". It was in the early days of the covid outbreak though, which likely had something to do with it. I had a few of these type issues, but they now seem to have stopped happening, thankfully.

I've had some USPS scanner and non-scan issues too with my outgoing packages (I sell a few small motorcycle engine parts and the carrier picks them up during normal rounds). A package I sent was missing for almost a month with no acceptance scan at my post office. The local Postmaster tried to pass it off as a non-standard tracking number, and she also said that tracking was a courtesy, not a requirement with the class I sent, which was total BS, as I always make sure to send with tracking even if it requires an upgrade. Main USPS support said it's in the system but lost. It turned up in a far away place that was totally not related to the intended destination a few weeks later. Usually those packages take a max of 2 weeks to get there. It finally did make it to the correct destination (overseas), but over 6 weeks later than usual.

I've noticed that nowadays, I usually see USPS tracking activity within a short time of the carrier pickup, apparently their handheld scanners now actually send data to the system, didn't used to happen that way.

More to the thread subject, when I bought my Helix Rack from Sweetwater, I don't recall a shipping delay.

 

[Jhengsman]

I've noticed that nowadays, I usually see USPS tracking activity within a short time of the carrier pickup, apparently their handheld scanners now actually send data to the system, didn't used to happen that way.

More to the thread subject, when I bought my Helix Rack from Sweetwater, I don't recall a shipping delay.

At the moment the service is upgrading its forth scanner, to the same model UPS is currently using and it does transmit fast. The previous generation scanner about the size of a 1988 cellphone which dates back to 2014 should have updated within minutes of a scan along with a GPS lock on the scan location. However carriers were on the street longer than they historically were and when the scanner went to battery save mode they stopped broadcasting.

What was the second generation of USPS scanners had a late upgrade to pair with a giveaway flip cellphone sent data on a slower schedule. Before, say around 2010 data was only entered at the end of the day when the carrier docked his scanner in the station

 

[genesound]

At the moment the service is upgrading its forth scanner, to the same model UPS is currently using and it does transmit fast. The previous generation scanner about the size of a 1988 cellphone which dates back to 2014 should have updated within minutes of a scan along with a GPS lock on the scan location. However carriers were on the street longer than they historically were and when the scanner went to battery save mode they stopped broadcasting.

What was the second generation of USPS scanners had a late upgrade to pair with a giveaway flip cellphone sent data on a slower schedule. Before, say around 2010 data was only entered at the end of the day when the carrier docked his scanner in the station

Oh thank you, that's interesting! But up until maybe sometime this year, my outgoing packages never showed any tracking activity other than "label created" on the USPS tracking webpage until either late that day or the day after it was picked up, not sure why.

 

[Jhengsman]

Oh thank you, that's interesting! But up until maybe sometime this year, my outgoing packages never showed any tracking activity other than "label created" on the USPS tracking webpage until either late that day or the day after it was picked up, not sure why.

The carrier needed to change the mode on his scanner and then scan it. At first we didn't have to change modes and hitting one small button saw pieces reported as delivered instead of accepted. Due to upgrades how you got to that mode has changed a few times over the years and only carriers who played around with their scanner discovered how it was done.
All focus of the post office is for showing a scan on stuff already in the system. With the newest scanner, and who knows maybe there is an upgrade on the third generation scanner, we do get an alert when we get close to your location if you put in a pick up order, but that doesn't guarantee that the carrier will know how to change the mode and accept the piece when he does pick it up.

 

[genesound]

The carrier needed to change the mode on his scanner and then scan it. At first we didn't have to change modes and hitting one small button saw pieces reported as delivered instead of accepted. Due to upgrades how you got to that mode has changed a few times over the years and only carriers who played around with their scanner discovered how it was done.
All focus of the post office is for showing a scan on stuff already in the system. With the newest scanner, and who knows maybe there is an upgrade on the third generation scanner, we do get an alert when we get close to your location if you put in a pick up order, but that doesn't guarantee that the carrier will know how to change the mode and accept the piece when he does pick it up.

Aha! Finally! Thanks again! I also had a few packages that showed "delivered" instead of "accepted" on tracking the day after sending them. When I called about it, they claimed they had no idea of what could have happened.

 

[wiscoaster]

I ordered a new set of strings from Sweetwater on Sunday and received them yesterday. No problems with delivery.

I think one needs to realize that once the items ordered leave the vendor the delivery is out of their hands. Sweetwater cannot be accorded accolades for on-time delivery nor can they be faulted for late delivery. They have nothing to do with it once it's in FedEx's hands.