Fedex Ground vs UPS Ground

Business
1

We have been working with UPS ground for all of our shippings. And learnd that Fedex Ground is cheaper and faster. For example to New York, Fedex Ground is only three business days, while UPS Ground is 5 business days.

Does anyone has a lot of experience with Fedex Ground? Please share with me your accessment of their service reliability.

The thing holding us back from signing an agreement with Fedex Ground is that they let us waited 4 months, from May to Sept, to just give us a rate agreement. We are worried what their customer service would be like once we signed on.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2

fedex is most popular company globally and you must try them.

3

UPS and DHL make me sign for packages. Fedex just rings the bell and leaves them outside the front door.

4

The only things I get FedEx are items from NewEgg and it’s always been extremely fast.

5

I’m also using Fedex Ground and they are fast. They also deliver on Saturdays (no additional fee) to major cities in the US (not sure about worldwide).

And they are cheaper too.

6

Great to know someone has experience with fedex ground. Do you use Fedex GROUND a lot? What is our weekly volume? We were thinking to switch, but were very hesitate to do so. Our weekly volume is around $1500.

7

I use UPS Ground a lot and prefer it over Fedex Ground–but when it comes to 1 & 2 day air, I’ve had better luck with Fedex.

My main complaints with Fedex Ground:

  • Several packages delivered to the wrong address.
  • States in 1 day UPS range took 2 days with Fedex, sometimes 3.
  • Fedex Ground drivers (in some areas, anyway) will dump all packages for an apartment complex at the office to save time, claiming they tried to deliver them but no one was home… even though they were seen pulling in the main entrance and going straight to the office.

On the other hand, I’ve never had a single complaint with Fedex’s express service, but can’t say the same about UPS next day or second day air.

8

On a consumer level - I usually prefer Fed-Ex for some reason. We had to integrate a few shopping carts as well into UPS / Fed-Ex. Working with Fed-Ex was a lot easier and they helped us more than UPS. Of course it all depends on who answers the phone but maybe we wer just luck those times with Fed-Ex?

9

I much prefer UPS.

Fedex ground is all independent contractors. UPS is all unionized people. This can be good or bad. In general I’ve found the UPS drivers to be more reliable and take better care of your package, they have good jobs with great benefits and they don’t want to lose them. Now sure, if you’re a high volume shipper and you need packages picked up on a Sunday, UPS isn’t going to help you, Fedex Ground might as they’re paid based on the number of packages they pickup/deliver.

But, fedex ground drivers just aren’t that reliable, like mentioned above. They are much more apt to dump packages without even knocking. They’re paid based on the sheer number of packages they can pickup and deliver, so they do cut corners.

Fedex, in my experience, has more fees for pickups.

Fedex does not let you insure certain items for more than $100, its not some niche items either, anything artistic or collectible.

I haven’t found fedex to be any cheaper.

For international items I’ve found fedex to be more of a hassle as well.

I just have never had a good experience with fedex.

My volume is about $1000 a week.

10

Corey, thanks for your input. Our 99% shipping is Ground. So Ground is very important to our business. If it were Express, we would not hesitate to choose Fedex.

Chris,
It’s nice to know your experience with your high volume shipment of $1000 a week. In this case, the UPS rep should work with you and give you nice incentive rate, right? My incentive is not that high, for Ground, it is close to 10%. And with some other waivers and Oversize adjustment.

What is nice about UPS is, whenever we call, there is always a rep return the phone call within one or two days, and they can visit your office. When our volume outgrew the initial contract, it was the rep who called me and told me that we need to re-negotiate the rate. That is really something.

On the other hand, I am having a hard time to meet any rep from local, Houston, Texas, all I got is a rep based out of Arizona, which makes the talk very difficult. Not to mention, it took 3 months for them to call me, and another 3-4 months to get a rate agreement. What kind of business can afford this kind of wait? Not until I reported this to their higher up management, did they finally paid attention to us. They once ignored our emails for 20 days. Even they gave us comparable rate to UPS, are we confident enough to switch? No. The sales rep just wanted to get us signed and moved on. We raised the question about transit time twice, and they did not jump on and answer that question.

It is interesting that Chris did not find Fedex GROUND is cheaper than UPS Ground. We compared the rates, and found the Fedex Ground is usually cheaper by 8% - published rate, and they can give you bigger discount like 12% vs 9% of UPS.

Guaranteed Transit Time
UPS Ground guarantee their transit time. But Fedex Ground transit time published is a lot faster than UPS. From Houston to New York is like 5 Biz days UPS and 3 Biz days Fedex Ground. But I don’t know if Fedex Ground is guaranteeing it.

Lost Package Claim
Everytime we file a claim for lost package with UPS, it is very resolved very fast, not much wait time. That is a big plus. Adjusting bill has also been easy with UPS, just call them and tell them their dimension measurement is wrong, they will correct them and reflect it on the next bill. With DHL, it takes months.

11

It is interesting that Chris did not find Fedex GROUND is cheaper than UPS Ground. We compared the rates, and found the Fedex Ground is usually cheaper by 8% - published rate, and they can give you bigger discount like 12% vs 9% of UPS.

Did you compare the total cost or just the rate? I’ve found Fedex tags on alot of charges.

12

Interesting, I just wrote some scripts that call both services to get rate quotes using their XML APIs. UPS was by far easier IMO.

13

I just compared the rate by going to their sites and getting the rate quotes. So it is published rates. We never tried out them, so I do not know their effective rates. What kind of charges they throw in there that are more than UPS’?

Thanks!

14

I don’t recall exactly, but it was atleast $7 in charges for a single package. One was a pickup fee, then there was another couple fees to, then the rate. At no point in the process of doing the shipment were those fees mentioned. I considered it false advertising and did a chargeback.

15

Fedex is contractors, they run up to the door, ring the bell and run away. The attached says I gave “signature release” but I never have. Better give them a call.