[PLUG-TALK] receiver-funded UPS shipments

[Keith Lofstrom]

The following is a business problem, but there might
be a third party software business solution for it,
so I will share it here.

Way too many online vendors have exclusive delivery
contracts with FedEx.  In the Portland area, FedEx delivery
is terrible (weeks waiting in trailers in Troutdale).
I presume that is because FedEx working conditions suck,
and FedEx wages are too low compared to Portland's other
employers, and they are too inflexible to pay for a fix.

UPS does a better job, but few online vendors use them.
With great exceptions - Reliable Parts uses UPS, and can
pack and deliver an order from their Seattle warehouse
in a day.  Indeed, they had a one-week shutdown-the-
company computer failure, one poorly-packed shipment
failure, followed by a successful free reshipment, all
in a 12
day window.  
The same item shipped FedEx from Chicago.  It spent two
weeks crawling through the Chicago suburbs, northern
Montana and Sandpoint Idaho, followed by a week of
"Portland in transit", where it remains today.


It would be great if I could make my own delivery
arrangements with UPS:  I pay for a UPS "will call"
pickup at the vendor, also transit and delivery.
UPS probably doesn't have a destination-funded
delivery option ... but they could.

I haven't read the vendor-FedEx exclusive delivery
contract; I wonder how much wiggle room there is for
destination-funded shipment alternatives?

Perhaps some of you are familiar with how this works.
Perhaps one of you is entrepreneurial enough to kludge
up some software for destination-funded shipment, then
sell it to UPS for $$$$$$$.

Keith

P.S.  The item in question is a Samsung refrigerator door
shelf.  Awful, fragile design.  Our shelf shattered when a
bottle smacked within it during a door closing.  The food
we kept on that shelf spent two weeks in small coolers. 
The first Reliable Parts replacement shelf was poorly
packed and broke in transit, also due to the bad design
and brittle plastic; the replacement replacement was
much better packed.

Samsung; I'll see what their SSDs do to my data ...

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com