Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why do people use UPS or FedEx?

Tried to send a gun because the buyer wanted ups. UPS store will not send guns. My question what is the appeal of ups or fedex? The problem is either will take a week for the package to arrive. The post office would be 3 days max. The post office is easier to use because they are in most towns. Is it just a corporate thing? Corporations get discounted shipping? I don’t get why you would use either when the shipping time is pretty much twice as long. Educate me! Oh yeah fedex is the worst about not meeting shipping estimate days. Sometimes days late. I have purposely not bought at places that forced fed ex.

I don't know about UPS or Fedex, but I've heard some horror stories about trying to get a damage claim paid by the PO.

Take your chances with the post office. It’s N.O.O

You’ve been living under a rock. Everyone knows a UPS store won’t ship firearms. You gotta go to a “hub” . The biannual shipping a gun thread here always brings it up.

Will they pick them up at your door step. They used to pick mine up but that was a long time ago. I haven’t shipped a gun in 2 or three years.

DAYS late?

perish the thought!

All of my mail (USPS), that's other than local, goes through/comes through Birmingham, AL. That hellhole is almost as bad as Memphis where most mail goes to disappear forever. Right now I have a powder scale that made it to Birmingham and left there late the next morning to get to my local PO. It arrived at my local PO Thursday after my mail lady had already headed out on the route. My scale never moved until Sunday when it was sent to another town, 45 miles east of me where it still is, according to tracking. I don't know when to if I will get the scale. On an outgoing note, I bought a shotgun on GB about 2 months ago. Mailed a USPS MO in Priority Mail with tracking to the FFL in Michigan. It tracked from my local PO to Birmingham the next day. It never moved from Birmingham for 10 days. 14 days after I mailed it, the FFL in Michigan got it........USPS SUCKS!!!!

Yeah, ask Bluefish about HIS experience....

Don't bother with USPS "insurance"... They LOVE to get your premium, but REFUSE to pay virtually anything..

Just FYI, yes you will have to go to the UPS Hub, but that is just to drop the box off...Use SHIP MY GUN, my experiences have been great...they are an "arm" of BUD'S GUNS, everyone I have talked to or emailed with has been great, and until I have a less than perfect experience with them I will continue to recommend SMG...price to insure and ship seems a little less(10-15%) than USPS...my only unknown is how the insurance will measure up...hopefully I never find out. 7 shipments in the last 30 days and counting

It is this easy !

Two years ago, I boxed up 3 books to send to an old Army Buddy who lives in Minnesota.
I took them to the post office, paid $10 or $12, and got a tracking number. Three days later I got a notification that they were delivered, so I called Gary.
They weren’t delivered to him, and the post office didn’t know where the books were delivered to, just that they were delivered!🤬
Reon

Because the post office is staffed by a bunch of government, no-load civil servants and there is even LESS recourse for claims if they f uck something up.

Former f-i-l, a cousin, and several personal friends work or retired from UPS. they took good care of me.

Fedex is 100 miles south, UPS is 38 miles north, USPS is the big silver box at the intersection of my road and the highway. Plus, the postmistress and route contractor are intelligent, helpful and cheerful. What's not to like?
Unrelated but by the way, UPS driver said freight volume is down 40% from a year ago...the junior drivers are getting laid off...the Biden economy?

The local PO people are good. Small town types. It's the big handling centers where the problems are. They're getting known for theft, too, besides crappy handling of people's mail and packages.

This, for years.

USPS shipping to my area has been problematic at best. Everything comes in or out of the North Houston package center and it is a cesspool of disorganization and theft. I have personally had 2 long guns go missing there. Packages also tend to go off the radar when arriving there with as much as 7 days of tracking silence. I avoid USPS like the plague when possible.

As for the others, Amazon’s shift to utilizing their own fleet is going to crush the industry. An increasingly greater % of all retail is going through Amazon thus they will continue to impact who succeeds or fails in the shipping space.

USPS sucks here.

The entire industry pays out only 2% of the claims that people paid for insurance on. Doesn't matter the carrier.
Most folks don't know that the US Post Office's largest customer is Fed Ex, and Fed Ex's largest customer in the US Post Office. Now even UPS works with the US Post Office in getting packages to their destinations as cheap as possible.

If a private UPS station refuses to ship a firearm, its their decision not to send it, not UPS, Fed Ex's or the Post Office itself.
They will ship it, if your package is done to their legal standards for shipping it. When I have shipped a firearm/Rifle, I normally pull the bolt out of it, so its inoperative. So it is shipped as Gun Parts. I ship the bolt to the firearm the next day to the same recipient, some times by a different carrier, such as the Post Office.

If it is a lever action, I pull the firing pin and ship that separately. I've worked around shipping as part of the jobs I've had, for quite a few decades. Back in the 80s, I even designed the set up for commercial corporate shipping departments as part of my job.

We only use USPS and FeD Ex for work business. . UPS is not an option for us.