What is your preferred shipper for wine?
0 voters
Lots of talk about shippers lately. What’s everyone preference?
Personally I like GSO here in CA. UPS nationally.
Hate DHL.
GSO, without a doubt
Far and away GSO has been the most flexible and responsive to me.
Trunk of my car for sure. I make occasional exceptions for Envoyer but except for that I almost never have wine shipped to me. Not really nessisary when I love within 90 minutes of winebid and the SF bay area.
GSO 
I thought DHL stopped wine service? If it can’t go GSO then UPS. Anything in the bay area I will go with the trunk of my car. I usually take a day off work every other month to make the rounds in the SF area, winebid, KL, JJB, misc wineries…
Gypsy Rose
The one en route to my address.
I don’t think the carrier matters that much. It’s more important that the winery or retailer is organized and eager to please by shipping on a Monday and doing whatever they can to lower your cost of shipping. Some wineries hand it over to a contract packager /shipper and you end up paying a ton for shipping and the shipper doesn’t care if it takes an extra day or a weekend to arrive at your office. K&L and Woodland Hills do it right every time. Envoyer is also very responsive.
All my shippers are great. They have the code to my garage and leave packages on the cool concrete floor. 90% of the time though I pick it up myself from the winery.
Go Sharks!
IIRC, DHL stopped domestic US service last year sometime. They were great for me…you paid for 2-day and it usually arrived next day (and in the a.m.). I’m back to UPS and FedX with a preference for UPS because 1. there are often issues with routing through Memphis (bad weather, heat, etc.), and 2. UPS delivers to my business location by 9 am and FedX is always afternoon (I want it off the truck asap).
Now, wine shipper I detest would be FedX Home Delivery/Ground which is really the re-branded RoadWay. I specifically ask that they not be used on all my orders. If you have to ask why, you haven’t experienced the joy that is FedX Home Delivery.
Brett Favre. He brings the wine over in the trunk of his car.
No preference; for me, it is not the shipper, it is the cost of the shipping.
They all have good and bad days.
Outbound from me or inbound to me?
Outbound - FEDEX by a mile.
Inbound - UPS by a little.
Chris
UPS definitely! No one else will hold my wine in their air conditioned warehouse and wait for me to pick it up without driving it around in the back of a truck all day. I just have it delivered to their address with my name and phone # on it and it stays put for 5 days or until I pick it up, whichever comes first. GSO is pretty good but I really like not having to be home all day waiting for the delivery.
Wow, I wish UPS’ warehouse here was air conditioned. I have had wine heat damaged in their warehouse in Mesquite, TX over mild weekends with temps in the 50’s and 60’s. Most of the time the wine was shipped early in the week but UPS left it off their truck for a few days necessitating the weekend death sentence. This happens to me on somewhere around 15-20% of shipments I receive via them. I have had no issues at all with Fedex.
UPS is a nightmare for me. There is normally no one home to receive shipment. Before the first delivery attempt they won’t let me request that the shipment be held at the distribution center for pick up (which is relatively convenient for me), the sender has to do that. I’ve had little success getting those hold instructions passed on from the sender to UPS, plus once I’m talking to the sender anyway I can normally get them to switch to FedEx and end the torture.
So, for a UPS delivery my option is to wait for the failed delivery, at which point I’m allowed to call the 800 number and ask them to hold at the distribution center. They say they will, the computer system is updated to say it is held at the distribution center, I go the next day to the distribution center where I am told that they “forgot” to take it off the truck. This happens almost every time. I’m familiar enough with the route at this point that I can normally hunt down the driver and get my shipment that way. The last time this happened, he apologized and blamed the distribution center for putting it in the wrong section of the truck which meant he couldn’t find it to off load it. He said to me that “anybody who uses UPS is crazy” (that is a direct quote). I have no idea if this is the driver’s fault or the distribution center’s fault (though I’m on my second driver with identical results) and I don’t care. If anyone is curious, I’m dealing with the Nassau County (NY) distribution center on Oak Street in Uniondale.
Compare this to Fed Ex. Once the shipment is underway, I can go into their system and divert it to the nearest FedEx/Kinko’s location where I can pick it up at my convenience. And it works.
To answer the obvious question, I do not want to have deliveries made to my place of business.
And if anyone from Wine Library is reading this, please, please, please make the process for switching to FedEx friendlier.
M @ r k M @ r c e l l u s
Fedex for me too. They deliver in the morning and early enough where someone is still home to accept delivery. Or I can simply reroute to the nearest kinko’s/fedex location to pick it up on the way home after work. That is hugely convenient.
I actually dislike GSO the most. Their times are very unpredictable, mostly in the early pm when noone is home, and only make 1 delivery attempt before I have to go to their warehouse to pick it up.
The one that will leave on my porch without a signature.
Mark,
UPS has the feature to go into the system and put a “hold for pickup” on shipment. I did it late the night before scheduled delivery with no issue…
UPS will be introducing refrigerated transport from hub to hub on shipments going out mid week which is really the most ideal shipping coast to coast. It never has a chance to sit over a weekend with any delivery being 5 business days .
I believe the refer transport will be starting in about 3 weeks
FedEx Ground gets to me first thing in the morning, usually between 8:30 and 9:00, so that’s a big plus. UPS is very reliable but I’m one of the last stops on the route, so in hot weather not so good; however, if I’ve got a tracking number I can get the 10 minute-away depot to hold it for me, even without a first delivery attempt.
I understand that shipping by air is safer, but, geez, it’s gotten so expensive, so I usually take advantage of retailers’ willingness to store for ground shipping when the weather’s better, and for which I’m grateful.
I’ve shipped wine using UPS & FDX. UPS by a mile.