UPS vs. FedEx (and my Diamond Creek has arrived!)
One of the interesting things I have discovered recently with wine shipments is that there is a small, but important, difference between UPS and FedEx. UPS allows you to go online and change the shipment destination if you are the recipient and you won’t be home during business hours for a few days. FedEx allows no such change.
That means it’s much easier to use UPS and get the shipment redirected (for free, usually) to you at work…or, from work to home, depending on where you ship your wine. I usually ship it to my home address but that’s not always very handy because I live in an apartment without a doorman, and the secure building access prevents the delivery person from leaving the wine inside my apartment.
In other words, I have to be home all day to have any hope of receiving my wine shipments. That’s not possible, so I like the fact that UPS redirects the shipments free of charge. That way, I can attempt one home delivery and hope for the best. If I miss the delivery, I’ll just get the package transfered to my work address where there’s a receptionist who can sign for my wine. Nice.
I’ll do anything to avoid waiting at the primary UPS building in south Seattle. I spent 2 hours there one evening…nightmarish, let me tell you. It happens more often than not when I try to go there; FedEx appears to have their act together a bit better, as does DHL, when it comes to picking up undelivered packages.
This is all food for thought because with the rise of Internet wine purchasing capabilities, I shop online more and more for, say, 2001 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill. I couldn’t even begin to find that wine locally, especially not at $81 per bottle!
Anyway, I suppose my point here is that nearly all online wine retailers seem to favor a particular delivery company. I don’t know if there is any rhyme or reason to why Vendor A uses UPS, while Vendors B and C use FedEx. Usually it’s hard to tell which shipping company will send you the wine until after you have paid, which seems a little old-fashioned given the advanced state of the online retail market today compared to the way things were in 1996.
So, I guess the verdict is that UPS is superior to FedEx on this particular issue. Now if I could only choose UPS as my shipping agent when I buy wine online!
PS - My Diamond Creek bottle arrived today…looks nice in my wine fridge! My fiance was here to receive the shipment, so I guess this particular topic isn’t all that relevant today. It sure was when they tried to deliver my Harlan Estate, though. I had to receive that at work.
January 25th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I ship wine on a fairly regular basis, and I’ve never had any complaints regardless of which company I use. But, I do hate looking for the cheapest price, it gets so tedious and annoying. One day on google I stumbled across http://www.shippingsidekick.com and it compares the prices of UPS, USPS, DHL, and FedEx all side by side, along with their transit times. It saved me a lot of money in the first week of use. For anyone who ships anything multiple times a week or even month, it’s worth looking into to save yourself some money.