Placed an order today and got my shipping notice in just over two hours.
The slowness is both with UPSMI and USPS. “Shared” responsibility means that neither feels responsible, apparently. My BLR magazines finally arrived at USPS North Houston Distribution Center, via the UPSMI tortoise, and it is now Day 4 of the package sitting, unmoved, at the USPS Distribution Center. Ten days, thus far, since that tortoise started walking from Missouri.
Meanwhile, Midway USA keeps spamming my e-mail box with “free shipping” announcements.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
Pretty much every order I have placed at Midway has shipped super fast, and their shippng rates are very reasonable.
Every CS interaction/issue I have had has been handled with superb professionalism.
I placed an order at Primary Arms over the weekend, and had an issue. I have sent 3 emails so far without any response. However, I am not going to hold it against them because, like Midway, they have banked up a big reserve of great CS with me.
These are strange times and you just have to be a little more patiend and forgiving.
Finally, on the fifth day of, uh, storage, the USPS North Houston Distribution Center moved my BLR mags to my local PO.
To be clear, Midway shipped the next business day. It was UPSMI, and then the USPS, that have made this delivery slow.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
I wonder if some of the push for free shipping has ended up with USPS offering services that are not guaranteed, so maybe Mail Innovations goes on a space available basis, sorta like flying standby. If the truck is full the priority packages go first, and if the truck is full for a number of days it doesn't matter. We end users don't like it, but we are willing do go for something free, that is actually not free. This is also coupled with USPS lowering the number of sorting facilities, it used to be that if I went downtown in Dayton, OH and mailed my last minute batch of Christmas cards or invoices, if got them there by like 21:00 or so the local people would start getting them the next day, now I think that stuff heads to Columbus around 17:00 and may or may not make it back by morning for delivery.
I dunno, this is just some schumk speculating.
My son worked for UPS the last two Christmas seasons, as a ride-along driver's helper. After this year's stint they hired him on as their regular dispatcher at the Center in our County. A dispatcher is used by UPS to daily create routes among that center's available trucks in order to ensure that the union drivers are not worked beyond 8.5 hours each day, and so while driver's routes are mostly the same day over day, the load has to be spread out amongst the trucks by the dispatcher to keep the Teamster's Union drivers happy. If drivers work more than 8.5 hours they have the right to file a union grievance after two such days in a row. And they do file them, regularly. My son has said that since March 1st of this year, because of covid, their daily package count has exceeded the counts of the last two holiday seasons, and drivers have been worked on average 10-11 hours per day on most days. UPS is still adhering to and meeting their guaranteed delivery times as much as they can, though it's killing their staff and drivers. Another wrinkle, in addition to the Covid-caused increase in online ordering is that Amazon has broken its relationship with FedEx and is using UPS to deliver all packages except for those for which they are hiring private delivery. I don't believe the USPS has the same refund policy for packages not delivered on time and so the mail innovations system is likely the weak point in that partnership between UPS and USPS and/or FedEx and USPS.
So, MidwayUSA, who I've always had good experiences with, in addition to having troubles keeping their own staff at work, healthy, and happy, is also challenged with keeping customers happy in spite of their delivery partners' own shortfalls related to tremedously increased workloads of their own.
I remembered this thread about the UPS "smartpost" debacle Midway foisted on many of us.
I am here to report that Brownells is now using "Fedex Smartpost" with equally disasterous results.
I placed an order on Brownells site on 11/3, it shipped on 11/5 via Fedex Smartpost and it is no place to to be found. 22 days after it shipped...hopelessly lost who knows where....
Beware, especially if you are a Brownells Edge customer. This was an Edge order but they have dinked the menu around in the order process so it defaults to "standard 5-7 day" unless you purposefully select "Edge 2 day" now.
Standard 5-7 is this abomination that is Fedex mingling with the hopeless and happless USPS....3 to 4 times the expected transit if you get it at all....
I have had multiple orders from Brownells missing small parts this year. They’ve always came through and shipped replacements when I call but it’s a hassle to deal with.