Bought something that was shipped via Fed Ex. Last thing on the tracking (from Texas) is Friday, 3/27/15 @ 7:30pm. Then nothing. It’s now Monday, 3/30/15 @ 10:20pm and still nothing mentioned on the tracking.
I rarely get anything sent Fed Ex. Is their tracking always this lame?
No, their tracking is usually very good actually. One of three things happened… the service type is the cheapest, they lost your package or they just missed the scan. Most likely a slow shipping sevice was selected,
Sometimes the shipper will start the tracking process by notifying FedEx of a pending shipment (usually this happens right after you buy something online, I assume it is done so that the shipping label can be produced) but the actual package is still at the vendor’s warehouse or may not even picked yet. If you ordered something after business hours on a Friday from a small vendor, they may not actually take the product off the shelf, pack it, and have it ready for pick up by FedEx until Monday.
Once the package is actually in FedEx’s hands the tracking is usually pretty good.
Sometimes the cheaper shipping option is to have FedEx hand off the package to the local USPS for final delivery. Tracking stops once it hits the post office (understandably), but the USPS usually delivers it quickly in my experience. But even in this case, the FedEx tracking should note that it was handed off to the post office.
FedEx Home tracking is about as good as UPS’ and the overnight FedEx services are tracked to such an insane degree that the tracking they show on the website is only about a third of the actual “captures” of the package’s barcode as it moves through the system.
If you read the tracking carefully, you might see something like “shipper prepared label” which just means someone printed the label for the box. Similarly, there’s another similar possible entry along the lines of “shipper notified carrier that package is ready for pickup” - neither of these mean your package left the seller’s building.
IME, if it’s a “Smartpost” shipment, plugging the tracking number into Google will give two hits - one on FedEx and one on USPS. Generally, you’ll only be able to track it to the local postal sort facility, and a day or two later, the postal tracking will show “out for delivery” if you’re lucky.
I like FedEx tracking because it always informs me when my expected package has been delivered to someone else.
The item was ordered on Thursday, 3/26/15. Here is what the tracking says (it goes backwards):
3/27/2015 - Friday
7:23 pm Arrived at FedEx location HUTCHINS, TX
8:29 am Shipment information sent to FedEx
12:00 am Picked up HUTCHINS, TX
And that’s it. Estimated delivery is Wednesday, 4/1/15 in West Allis, WI.
Probably just a matter of using the cheapo rate, then. There’s no tracking information because the box isn’t moving.
It has to be somewhere.
it was in Texas on Friday. It’s supposed to be in Wisconsin tomorrow.
Where is it right now? Are you saying tomorrow morning it’s go on a plane in Texas and be shipped up?
Could be. Or it could be on a truck somewhere, if it was shipped FedEx Ground.
The cheap rate basically means: this goes at the last possible minute unless there’s extra space beforehand.
I have found Fedex a bit inconsistent in delivery times, not tracking. USPS is the exact opposite. UPS just seems to hit it out of the park each and every time.
As friedo said, it very well could be on a truck. There’s generally no new tracking information for the entire time your package is on a truck, which could be several days.
So, as far as Fed Ex (cheap rate, anyway) tracking goes, it’s bullshit.
All I’ll get is “it’s been sent” and then, eventually, “you got it”.
USPS does much better for less than half the price.
You’ve had luck with USPS tracking? That’s the worst of the bunch, by far, in my experience. Most of the time, I don’t get any info until I already have the delivery in my hand. Both FedEx and UPS have been fine, in my experience. ETA: But I don’t think I usually use the ground service. Still, I’m having difficulty imagining anything worse than USPS tracking.
So at 8am this morning there was still nothing more on the tracking system. The item was delivered at 8:45am and when I checked the tracking at 9 everything was on there going back to Friday. Lot of good it does me now. That’s pretty crappy if you ask me.
I use USPS all the time to ship firearms*. They’re cheaper than anyone else and the tracking has always been dead on. Never had any problems. I wouldn’t ship a gun through them if there were problems with the tracking.
*This is the part where someone jumps in and insists it’s illegal to mail a gun. No, it isn’t.:rolleyes:
That’s not how it typically works. Sounds like a series of status updates got stuck behind an electron clog.
USPS is my primary shipper as well, because of their price. However, I’ve found them shitty for real-time tracking of the package (and I really mean abso-fucking-lutely terrible, with one package being mysteriously gone for 10 days before it resurfaced), with FedEx and UPS and DHL being much better. What you’ve reported with FedEx is unusual to me, and is more what I expect from USPS.
(Not sure what the quip about shipping firearms is about though. Why would it be illegal? It’s legal to fly with them, provided you follow the regulations, so I don’t understand why one would think it’s illegal to ship them in the proper manner.)
Really? I’ve actually been impressed with USPS. Perhaps I’ve been lucky. But I’ve used them for years. The cost savings is significant.
Over the last 30 years you wouldn’t believe how many postal workers at the counter have had a conniption when I told them a handgun was in the package. Like I’m a terrorist. Going on and on how I can’t ship it, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, blathering on while looking at my forms and such. Sick but I’ve actually gotten to enjoy their reaction. And then when their super comes out and within 5 seconds says “yeah, it’s fine” the look on their face is fuggin priceless!!!
I haven’t had any significant problems with USPS actually delivering my packages on time minus that one package that got lost in the ether for a week and a half. But it’s not been good for point-to-point tracking. If I needed to really follow the package, I would use FedEx or UPS.
Almost 25 years ago I had to ship some equipment to California (from New York State) for a presentation my co-workers needed to deliver. On Saturday morning, one of my co-workers called me to let me know the stuff hadn’t arrived. So I called Fedex. The guy looked on his computer and eventually told me that the package went down the wrong conveyor belt in New Jersey and that’s why it was delayed. I can’t even remember how the situation was resolved but the point is that I believe that Fedex tracks packages very closely, even if the information isn’t always shown to the customer via the website. (Back then of course, you couldn’t just look up the status of a package but had to call them to find out.)