shipping woes | pad patter 3.5.19

I feel your pain! We live in a major metropolitan area and shipping is usually quick and easy. But I don't know what it is about Shutterfly--it seems like every time I order from them I have shipping issues. Usually it's things taking much longer than they should to arrive, sometimes being marked delivered when they weren't. (Last time that happened I contacted the post office and they managed to track it down. They'd accidentally delivered to a similar address in the next zip code over. The time before when it happened no one could explain it, since my mail should have been on a vacation hold and they told me they hadn't actually delivered it. It finally arrived 2 weeks later even though the post office swore they didn't have it during the 2 weeks.) Once a photobook never arrived and they had to reprint it. I had one arrive a few weeks ago that had been dropped in shipping and has a crushed corner and a damaged spine, so they're reprinting and resending that for me. I don't know what company they're using before they do the hand off to my local post office, but between the 2 something always goes wrong.

 

What a pain in the backside! Ugh. I sure hope you get your shoes eventually... but really at that point it's pretty silly. It'll be a whole new season before they get around to delivering your shoes! Sheesh!!

In our area UPS is amazing. If they are delivering, I have no worries. Even the Smartpost thing they do were they deliver to the local post office and then let them deliver the package has gotten SO much better. If I see something coming from Fedex... I cringe. They are the WORST. They almost always say they attempted delivery and no one was home so they will try again the next day.... at the same time that no one was home the day before. How does that make any sense. Just leave my darn package! Lol! Last time I had something like that happen though, they gave me the option to leave the package at a local "drop off point" or something like that. Basically I could click a box online and then they would deliver the package to my local Walgreens and then I could pick it up from them. That is actually awesome too because Walgreens is open 24 hours a day and I won't have to worry about someone stealing my item... not that that's ever happened, but still.

 

ugh- we have the biggest shipping problems in our neighborhood- the street numbers are all the same, but different street names. You'd think postal workers could read... but almost once a day on our HOA facebook page is someone asking if their package was delivered to the wrong house. So annoying. I've personally called the postmaster so many times that he knows me... that's not a good thing! lol!

Fedex is the worst. I love checking the tracking to see that the package basically passed our house on the way to the distribution center & then has to come back to us a few days later... smh...

 

Could you imagine living in an area that have street names that are almost the same?

My father lived in a (formerly gated) development that had smaller neighborhoods within it. Each neighborhood had a name. His was Village of Wood's Walk. Each street in the neighborhood was "Woods Walk" something. Looking at the map, the streets are: Woods Walk Way and Woods Walk Lane. The neighborhood next to that one has streets of Chimney Hill Way, Chimney Hill Trail, and Chimney Hill Court. Across from Woods Walk are Lake Pointe Trail and Lake Pointe Place. Apparently the developers figured out this was not a good idea as further development went away from this naming convention!

 

That is awful! I would actually understand postal issues there! Ours are at least different: Copper River Lane, San Juan Lane, Bitterroot Lane, etc.

 

That totally sucks. We have had a few dramas, but mostly sorted in a positive way. But as much as we Aussie's complain about our post system, I really don't have too many issues with lost parcels. Our issue is Posty or Delivery People stuffing the item in the mail box -- "Do Not Bend" means nothing -- or sitting out the front of the house or entire street (true story) and writing cards for each parcel and just not delivering them at all, making us go to the Post Office.

 

My only problem has been with the Post office who delievers for Amazon. I have a bag of dog food deleivered monthly. It comes in a box, so it is not recognizable and I live in a safe area and they always leave it by the front door and ring the bell. This month I got a message that no one was home so they didn't deliver. I was home all day.

 

So glad you FINALLY got your shoes!! I'm just shaking my head reading everyone's posts. Oddly enough, I don't have issues with Fedex. They just leave the package. It's USPS that I have issues with at times. My husband had issues recently when ordering bulbs for our 75-gallon aquarium. It was a nightmare. I think it took almost a month, even though they were supposed to take a week.

 

I don' t know exactly what happened, but at some point about 2 years ago, shipping from US to Canada became more expensive and far less reliable. I wanted to buy some planner stickers from a shop in California, but the shipping for a single 4x4 sheet of stickers was $13. I emailed the seller and she explained that USPS won't allow her to ship commercial products as regular mail - even though it's really just a piece of paper. I feel terrible because there are small businesses, and they are losing out on a sale because of a ridiculous policy.
Other times, I'm sitting there and tracking the parcel online, and I'm like, "why on earth would it go from Kentucky to LA to the Phillipines. I'm in Eastern Canada? I could've walked to Kentucky to pick up the package in this amount of time!" Things take over 8 weeks to ship. And again, the result is I just don't order from these mostly smaller businesses. End result: I will shop online from nearly any country, but US. It's nothing personal. But if I'm buying yarn to knit a baby sweater, I want to get the yarn in time to finish the sweater before the baby arrives.

 

Amazon must like me because I always get what I've ordered in the time specified. knock on wood...
I usually get the Prime free delivery whatever that is but I recently got the Whole Foods voucher and now just have to see what I can do to use it.

I used to order a lot more clothes from Lands End and LLBean especially as our local Sears(3 miles away) had the Lands End section AND a dedicated cash register. Get the package at home and return it at Sears if necessary AND get a 10% (?) coupon for something purchased the same day. Trust me I always found something! LLBean unfortunately closed the store nearest me as did J. Crew so those no longer get ordered on line. I hate spending time trying on things in a store but if I have to spend an hour to get a free return, I won't buy on line and no, I don't want to spend $7 or $8 just to return an item.

 

@cookingmylife When the kids were smaller I ordered a lot from Land's End. But I've had a few shipping issues with them too now. (An emergency replacement backpack that got rerouted to Calgary by Canada Post!) Now I'm doing a lot of ship-to-store with Simon's (Canadian department store). It's easier to find the right size online, it's always fast and free to ship to the store, and I can pick up (and return or exchange if needed) on my lunch break.

 

Hubby orders shoes from amazon all the time. He goes to local stores here tried them on and the orders through amazon. Well, it’s usually expensive shoes: motorcycle boots, or bicycle shoes with clips. Twice he has gotten boxes that seem to barely have survived the apocalypse. He comes to me and says, “Please, call them and fix it for me!” He is non-confrontational, plus he knows I’ll get him his money back and make amazon apologize and let him keep his shoes. LOL