Question about accepting wine delivery

WINE TALK
1

Hi everyone-

Apologies if this has been covered before, but couldn’t find a thread that covers this explicitly. I currently live in an apartment with a leasing office that can sign for packages on my behalf. But I’ll be moving to a house in the near future and no one will be home to sign for deliveries.

For various reasons, I can’t ship wine to where I work. I don’t use an offsite storage company and would rather not start. There must be a lot of WBers in this position and I’m curious what you do to accept alcohol deliveries that require signatures.

Thanks,
Noah

2

ship to a UPS/Fedex store near you. pick up from there.

7 Likes
3

Also fedex within Walgreens, and various UPS Access Point locations

4

this is the answer and I’ve found Fedex way more easier to use and to manage their app. Pick a fedex office location near your new home. You have 5 business days to pick it up your shipment.

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5

as others mentioned, with Fedex its free to reroute to a Fedex Store or a Walgreens. It is possible with UPS but I believe you need a paid account (can be a residential account) to reroute to a UPS Access Point location.

For me, Walgreens is easy based on its location to me, so even if a few bux higher, I asked the winery/store/etc if they can ship Fedex to me. 1-2 clicks in the app after I get the tracking number and its re-routed.

If you are going to be away on vacation (more than 5 days) - Fedex has a vacation hold option too whereas I believe the packages can be held much longer assuming in the nearest sorting facility (again for free)

6

I live in SF, so packages left at the front door “survive” maybe 30 minutes to an hour… We rent a UPS locker that has a physical address (no PO box) and have almost all packages delivered to that. Works for all carriers (not just UPS) and it’s relatively inexpensive. They also hold much longer than if you just ship to FedEx/UPS, which is usually 5 days before they send it back (which is great for when you’re on vacation…)

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7

Do not need a paid account for access point if the original source ships as such. In other words, no re-routing.

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8

I had wine FedEx delivery fail this week (two boxes), I’m away on vacation, and the phone notice said they would hold for 15 days prior to returning to sender. I’ll swing by next Monday to pick them up.

9

In both my previous town and current one I found small independent mailing shops that were happy to receive packages for me. The first charted $2 per package and the second $5 which I’m happy to pay. And I tip them.