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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

Fedex and UPS have suspended their on-time guarantee since March (my company focuses on auditing Fedex and UPS; most disputable mistakes are late deliveries)

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Just as a not, I've had FedEx deliveries come through after 9PM in the last month. The on-time guarantee is suspended but I'm still impressed with how hard they've been trying (at least in my area).

I know the drivers are working hard, and have been a big part of keeping the US functional during the pandemic.

Speaking with the FedEx folks in my area, they’ve been working 7 on, 1 off. At UPS we’ve been doing 6 on, 1 off as we don’t work Sundays per the union contract.

I've found this frustrating, but understandable? I don't know.

I shipped a laptop to a new employee, paid $250 for shipping. It got there three days after it was supposed to. It sucks to pay so much for weak service, and like no visibility into what's happening. I'm honestly surprised at this point none of the carriers haven't introduced some sort of estimate based on ML rather than their delivery standards. It seems like they should have enough data points by now.

A year ago you could get the full $250 back (barring some issues like weather, or shipping during the holiday blackout period from Cyber Monday to Christmas).

Right now the estimates they give you have always been tied to the guarantee. I'm not sure if they'll ever start showing guarantees based on actual delivery; one thing is the carriers tend to operate in lockstep. There are a handful of companies in our space that are trying to provide additional insight, but as alluded to, they have more data points than any of us do.

After I was laid off, I shipped my company-issued equipment back over a month ago. They still haven’t gotten any of it. They know it shipped because they have the tracking number.

I have had so many late packages lately. Fedex Ground was supposed to deliver Friday ... then it slipped to Monday, then today. This morning the tracking was updated to say it'll arrive tomorrow. So frustrating.

USPS has been really bad here in the Detroit area, too.

Of course Amazon packages are rarely or ever late.

My recent amazon orders have taken weeks to even ship.

Where do you live? I am in the Bay Area, and for me personally Amazon has been the only place which has had consistent delivery times in recent months.

This isn't the case for me in the mid-Atlantic region. Prime used to mean "free 2 day shipping", but it hasn't necessarily been that way even before the pandemic. Yeah, it's free, but it'll get there when it gets there, often after the estimated delivery day. Often the day after they say it was delivered.

Same story here with UPS. Ordered a computer recently. Original delivery estimate was last Thursday. Then they updated and said it'd arrive yesterday. Why does a one-time delay incur four days of lateness? In four days I could've driven to the origin and picked it up myself. To make matters worse it didn't even arrive yesterday. Apparently it's at a facility less than three miles away yet they couldn't get it to me in the 13 hours it stayed on the truck before going back to the facility. Finally arrived today - after four delivery delays and five days past the original maximum estimate. The worst part is I paid the merchant to ship it expedited and received nothing like expedited service but since I'm not the one who made the contract with UPS I can't get a refund.

If Fedex and UPS have suspended their on-time guarantee how is your company providing value to customers?

Can you point me to any good resources where I can stay up-to-date on the shipping industry?

In terms of auditing, we do evaluate other services the carriers offer (like address corrections, residential surcharges, etc), as well as help our customers catch things like unmanifested shipments (ie, you print off a label, customer cancels order, and you don't cancel out that shipment). We have a full suite of reports and analytics that extend beyond just our service. We also provide contract analysis and optimization.

In terms of resources, of course I have to point to our blog and podcast, available from RefundRetriever.com.

There is a typo on y'all's front page:

> FedEx and UPS both have very complicated contracts. We break down all your current costs, zones, weights and highlight WERE we see savings potentials with our own proprietary software.

Well that's embarrassing! Thanks for pointing this out.

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