After 29 years, B&H has lost my business

UPS has been reliable for me in the past year. I don't feel concerned about delivery dates or damage when UPS is the shipper.

USPS almost as reliable as UPS. On a few occasions I've had items shipped to me via USPS that would disappear into limbo for a while, and then show up a week to ten days after the original scheduled delivery date.

FedEx Home Delivery has been horrible. My experience mirrors Timmyjoe's. I don't think I've gotten one single package delivered on time by FedEx in the past year. The delivery date comes and goes with no delivery. The original scheduled delivery date continues to show on their website for a day or so after that day has passed. Then it will change to say "No scheduled delivery date available at this time." Eventually the shipment will show up. FedEx hasn't lost any of my packages, but they are always late.

Another funny thing is that many packages shipped to me via FedEx state that a signature is required, but they are all eventually left on my doorstep without one.

So far I haven't stopped buying from any business because they use a shipping service that I don't like (FedEx), but I probably would if it cost me more than just extra time to get my goods.
 
No major problems with any major carriers here so far, but service is much less predictable than it has been in the past. I just assume that it's going to take an extra day or two and I'm pleasantly surprised when it doesn't.
 
I guess I'm spoiled.

I walk into my local camera store, they ask me what I want, I tell them what I want... within a few days, I get what I want. They like me, I like them, I get what I want... they make money, we're all happy.

Yokohama is the best!

All the best,
Mike
 
Beemermark said:
Lack of local drivers
Click to expand...

All of the issues people have are local, no matter which carrier is used. They arise due to management and personnel issues at either the origination facility or the destination facility, or both. They are not systemic. When speaking of UPS, USPS, or FedEx, there is no “they” in the corporate sense of “a corporation handled my packages”. A corporation didn’t handle your packages, Fred and Mary and Juan handled your packages. Individuals, not robots. Some work like dervishes, some don’t. Every ZIP code has a different Postmaster, every UPS, every FedEx branch office, has a different manager. They all have wide discretion and differing levels of competence as to how they manage packages. And try firing an incompetent Postal service employee and see how that works.
How well the shipping service works for you wherever you live is dependent on that. Not enough local drivers, et cetera.

People here have given different names of carriers which are either the best or the worst, every carrier has been called both of those. Nobody here is wrong, but what people are remarking on is only what is relevant in their situation, it can’t be accurately extrapolated to the entire corporate entity. None of this is national. “FedEx” didn’t ship your package, individual managers and staff who work for FedEx this week shipped your packages.
Everyone is going to settle on a service which is the least worst for them, where they are, but that service might easily be, and obviously is, from the responses, the most worst for someone somewhere else, which, again, is exactly why people are expressing different, yet all accurate, opinions.
And the rankings can and will change over time, yet go unnoticed because we only use the one carrier that we decided we liked 5 years ago.
 
Larry, the only area I disagree is that "there is no 'they' in the corporate sense". The CEOs main job is to monitor the company's performance. I am sure he gets a daily summary of package delivery performance. And he knows the cost to deliver and the price received for the packages on an aggregate basis so he knows what the financial performance will be. He also has to project shipments into the future. I am sure he has staff to investigate late performance, particularly those related to specific facility locations. Delivery problems plague all the carriers and have been long standing. The CEO is the ONE balancing delivery performance vs corporate earnings vs capital expenditure / human resources. We know where the customer stands is this balance. Long gone is the FedEx slogan "when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight."
 
View Range said:
Larry, the only area I disagree is that "there is no 'they' in the corporate sense". The CEOs main job is to monitor the company's performance. I am sure he gets a daily summary of package delivery performance. And he knows the cost to deliver and the price received for the packages on an aggregate basis so he knows what the financial performance will be. He also has to project shipments into the future. I am sure he has staff to investigate late performance, particularly those related to specific facility locations. Delivery problems plague all the carriers and have been long standing. The CEO is the ONE balancing delivery performance vs corporate earnings vs capital expenditure / human resources. We know where the customer stands is this balance. Long gone is the FedEx slogan "when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight."
Click to expand...

I’d agree in theory, but I don’t think it works that way in practice. Yes, it’s the CEO or the Postmaster General’ who, on paper, has the ultimate responsibility for if my package gets here on time, but UPS has 543,000+ employees, the USPS has 600,000+ employees as does FedEx. If you are at the top of that chain managing millions of parcels a year, that’s like herding cats. Most of the people working at the local level couldn’t even name the head of the organization. The CEO of FedEx is both at the head of the chain, and yet completely removed from the process of handling your individual package, and there are many levels of management up the chain. It doesn’t work like the flowchart diagram. It can’t and it doesn’t.
“These are my orders, and I want them carried out!” Yeah, well, good luck with that if you are a CEO. It works in a very broad sense, but not at the granular level where your package is.
I am aware I keep saying the same thing, but if it was leadership decisions at the very top of the chain which decided how good your service was, if “FedEx” was an actual entity that touched your package and scanned it, or failed to scan it, or put it on the truck, or failed to put it on the truck, or handed it to you, or left it outside in the rain, then everyone here would have the same experiences with a given carrier, and they don’t; their experiences are diametrically opposed. It’s local. It’s the specific individual humans who handled your package, it’s not the corporate flowchart.
FedEx is hands down the fastest, most reliable carrier the last 5 years or so, where I live. USPS is horrible, and UPS varies with whether there is snow on the ground or not. For Tim, In Chicago and with packages coming from NYC, FedEx is the worst performing carrier. Same CEO both cases. I have no reason to doubt the experiences of anyone here, but it’s local.

Example using UPS: This is a mountainous area, very little flat, which gets huge snow 5 months out of the year. Local UPS management refuses to buy 4 wheel drive delivery vehicles. That’s a local decision, by local management, it’s not corporate. In other similar areas, UPS local management there has 4 wheel drive capability. Consequently, UPS won’t deliver to my address 5-6 months out of the year. Their tracking information will say “delivery refused, package held at UPS facility for pickup.” I, and hundreds of others here, have shown this to the next level up regional management, and they not only don’t care they don’t even want to hear about it. First it was, “if they say delivery was refused, it must have been refused.” If you get the higher level regional person on the phone, their answer is, “if that how the local management needs to run things there we are not going to interfere. They are the only ones who know what their resources are.” It never gets to the CEO level.

These carriers all have recognizable corporate logos, and their trucks are all painted the same, which gives the illusion that, surely, the service is going to be the same everywhere, but it’s not, because the employees are individuals, and act individually, getting away with whatever they can.
A bad plumber screwing up my pipes isn’t the fault of the plumber’s union or the head of the plumber’s union. National carriers are not as different from that as we want to believe. It’s people, it’s local, or levels of local.
 
As has been mentioned before, FedEx Ground is operationally a completely different entity from FedEx. They have different hubs and different tracking and customer service, and are for all practical purposes different companies.

One area may have excellent service with FedEx but mediocre with FedEx Ground, which is why they need to be differentiated, instead of just referring to both as ‘FedEx.’
 
loquax ludens said:
FedEx Home Delivery has been horrible. My experience mirrors Timmyjoe's. I don't think I've gotten one single package delivered on time by FedEx in the past year. The delivery date comes and goes with no delivery. The original scheduled delivery date continues to show on their website for a day or so after that day has passed. Then it will change to say "No scheduled delivery date available at this time." Eventually the shipment will show up. FedEx hasn't lost any of my packages, but they are always late.
Click to expand...

This exactly.

Best,
-Tim
 
B&H has been great for decades. It was always fun to stop in to the NYC shop to browse used stuff (back when they still had tons of used film camera stuff). Back in the day, getting B&H's "grey market" film was always a cheaper option. I would not blame B&H for how unreliable so many carriers have been recently. I have bought and sold lots of stuff this past year and everything has been all over the place. I sent something to Japan that took over two months to arrive, and did so via RUSSIA. I sent things via USPS Priority domestically that took a month to arrive. On the other hand, I got some things from Europe in less than a week from UPS/DHL. This pandemic has put a huge strain on logistics, and I feel bad for all of the employees who were caught in the middle or it, and even caught COVID at work -- as they were all deemed "essential" from day one.
 
splitimageview said:
As has been mentioned before, FedEx Ground is operationally a completely different entity from FedEx...
Click to expand...
OK, I've ignored this before, but my drive for correct nomenclature won't permit letting it pass again.

FedEx is the company. There are three different delivery options offered by the company FedEx. One is FedEx Express. The others are FedEx Ground and FedEx Home. See attached.
 

Attachments

  • FedEx service types.jpg
    FedEx service types.jpg
    11.8 KB · Views: 0
Sal Santamaura said:
OK, I've ignored this before, but my drive for correct nomenclature won't permit letting it pass again.

FedEx is the company. There are three different delivery options offered by the company FedEx. One is FedEx Express. The others are FedEx Ground and FedEx Home. See attached.
Click to expand...

Not really, not in the context of what is being discussed here. It seems like semantics, company vs. division, but it’s more than that.

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-FedE...nd-services-as-if-they-are-separate-companies


FedEx Ground was originally RPS (Roadway Package System) a direct competitor to UPS. From its inception in 1973, Federal Express invented and controlled the express delivery market. By the early 80's they had competitors like Emory Air Freight and Purolator. However, in the late 80's, UPS began to compete directly by offering a next day delivery option. With UPS taking some of the overnight market share, Federal Express needed a "ground" component to compete. Federal Express bought out RPS. Shortly thereafter, Federal Express created a parent corporation and rebranded as "FedEx Corporation".

Air freight is a very small component of UPS's business, so it wasn't difficult to incorporate that in to thier existing system. However, adding the much larger ground freight business into FedEx's specialized air freight hubs would have required a complete rebuild. Rather than try to integrate two different systems, which would have cost billions, FedEx chose to keep thier express and ground components separate.

FedEx now has several companies, all specializing in a different part of the transportation business.

Fedex operates: Express, Ground (and Home Delivery), Freight, Custom Critical, Office and FedEx Services. All are tied together by one sales team and call centers, but operate independently.

I had the occasion a couple of years ago to inquire about the location of a package, and went into the local FedEx (Express) hub with a tracking number. She said, “That’s not us, that’s FedEx Ground. It’s not in our system. You need to ask them.”

The managers at the regional level are two different people, in completely different facilities. The trucks are different, the drivers are different. The regional hubs for each are often not even in the same city. FedEx won’t even let you work for both “companies” simultaneously.
 
Sal Santamaura said:
OK, I've ignored this before, but my drive for correct nomenclature won't permit letting it pass again.

FedEx is the company. There are three different delivery options offered by the company FedEx. One is FedEx Express. The others are FedEx Ground and FedEx Home. See attached.
Click to expand...

It's correct there there are three delivery options, but my statement stands (as confirmed by @Larry)...from an operational standpoint, they are completely different.

See my story above about when a Fedex Ground driver picked up a Fedex International package by mistake....
 
Sal Santamaura said:
OK, I've ignored this before, but my drive for correct nomenclature won't permit letting it pass again.

FedEx is the company. There are three different delivery options offered by the company FedEx. One is FedEx Express. The others are FedEx Ground and FedEx Home. See attached.
Click to expand...


OK, we get it. You won't use BH because they use FedEx. Use Adorama or a host of other companies.
 
splitimageview said:
Or maybe order over the phone and request another shipper.

Just a thought.

😎
Click to expand...

I remember years ago when all orders to B&H were placed over the phone. It was that or filling out the order form from the book-like B&H catalog and mailing it in (a signed cheque included in the envelope with the form) . I used to read the B&H catalog like it was a number 1 best selling novel. 😀

All the best,
Mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Jake Mongey
Stuck In A Hole - How to find enjoyment in actually taking photos?
3 4 5
Replies
98
Views
6K
PetPhoto
P
J
  • Article Article
The Mysterious Leica M5 of 1992: We now know more, but not all!Wetzlar made 20 M5s 17 years after it ceased production, but why?
2 3
Replies
43
Views
3K
38Deardorff
38Deardorff
B
How has your photography changed over the years?
3 4 5
Replies
90
Views
8K
Bolo Kukus
B
Muggins
No sh*t - the outside toilet darkroom thread
Replies
12
Views
1K
Yokosuka Mike
Yokosuka Mike
Jake Mongey
My Undying Affection Towards The Nikon F2
2 3 4
Replies
76
Views
5K
Alpsman
A
Back
Top Bottom