FedEx - strange shipping progress (to UK)


I recently purchased from Vinshine in Singapore, for shipping to the UK. (Vinshine's service was flawless by the way).

Vinshine used FedEx for the shipping; started off fine albeit via a curious route:

Singapore to China

China to Japan

Japan to Hong Kong

Hong Kong to Belgium 

Belgium to France

France to Dartford, England

My item shipped on Monday 8th and reached Dartford, England on Friday 12th - not bad considering the strange route 😂

My delivery was noted as Friday 12th, but I knew that wouldn't be happening; Dartford is around 270 miles from my nearest FedEx depot in Liverpool, but no bother I'm not precious about it. 

As I suspected, my delivery was pushed back to yesterday, 15th; no bother, but then I see my item had made it's way back to Charles de Gaul airport in France again 😄 what gives!?

Yesterday, my item had made its way back to England again, with delivery scheduled for Wednesday, tomorrow. I then received notification this morning,that my item is in Liverpool and is being delivered today (on the delivery van - hooray! 😄)

I don't have much experience of FedEx, but is this normal?

I'm not precious about all of this, I just found it all rather funny, not to mention a little strange. Do others have odd experiences with FedEx,?

128x128painter24

Both FedEx and UPS are struggling a bit in the US with UPS recently announcing lay-offs - probably because Amazon is competing with them in more and more markets.

It almost looks like they are taking pointers from the USPS on routing packages. Enjoy the music

@bolong this may explain the odd routes taken; staff shortages, competition etc. Anyway, my item arrived in one piece and and scathed from it's marathon, around the world trip 😊👍

Thanks @tooblue , I will do. 👍

 

Considering you got your stuff in 7days, that's pretty awesome.  here in the states, if i order something coming from the east coast to L.A., which is where i am, here's what typically happens, for example:  NJ to CA in 3-4 days.  Once my stuff gets to some kind of hub in L.A., it takes another 3-4 days to move to my house about 15 miles away because it goes through a number of distribution centers.    so it takes my shipment the same amount of days to go 3000 miles and 15 miles.  pisses me off to no end. 

@shtinkydog that is frustrating, and a little insane this day and age. Sounds similar to the UK's regular postal service. My heart sinks when I order something online and I then see the retailer is using the Post Office regular mail 😩. If the option is available, I'll pay the extra to have DPD courier delivery.

I ordered another piece of Hifi kit from China a little while back: took about 4 days to get to the UK and another 4 to get from the South of England to the North West, about 250 miles 😄. The retailer in China for some reason used UK Post Office for the domestic leg of the journey 🥴

I've bought a lot of gear from the US, UK and China to Australia and it's not unusual for it to be 4-5 days from the source country to Sydney and then another 4-5 days via Auspost from Sydney to Shellharbour , where I live about 85kms from Sydney. My worst experience was when I bought a preamp from New York and shipped via Fedex. It arrived in Sydney in about 6 days but was held in Customs for another 2 weeks. During that period I tried to contact the Fedex Customs Dept and Australian Customs to find out what was happening and how much duty I had to pay without success. Neither answered their phone despite me trying several times a day. Messages left went unanswered. Poor customer service from both. Eventually I got an invoice from Australian Customs with no reference to the number of times I tried to contact them and no apology.

The best for international delivery is DHL. I ordered a streamer from South Korea. From the time it was picked up in SK, to the time it was on my doorstep in the middle of the states was 37 hours! I was blown away!

@riie if you're referring to the football, you're absolutely spot on 😄. I went to the pub to watch the Atalanta game last week; we (Liverpool FC) haven't played that badly since Roy Hodgson's time in charge. 

The end of the season can't come quick enough 🥴

Also my friend had the same experience ,  FedEx has strange routs and looks like that is normal for them.