I know that the fruit and probably all the vegetables I can buy at Schnucks and Dierbergs fits the description of Grade D and Grade E. Once in a blue moon a few items will come in at grade C, but it's rare. Each store also sells organic produce which to me borders on that grade F quality. I was extremely disheartened when I came down here to O'Fallon and saw the quality of their produce. Where I came from Grade A produce showed up once in a while but most of the time it B and possibly C graded. I guess it's all edible and the prices down here were less than up north. It's just disappointing that I'm so much closer to the source now and the quality is significantly less.
I happen to know that there is no such thing as "fresh" produce in any of the retail shops. And I know they hose down all the produce with things like chlorine and store them in altered atmospheres for weeks and months before they get shipped to retail stores. While I put Quora in the same class as Facebook and seldom visit either website, you probably can expand on this horror story I found on Quora https://www.quora.com/How-fresh-is-groc ... re-produce I had an uncle who was a mechanical engineer and worked at the Chicago Stock Yards when they existed. I almost became a vegetarian after hearing some of his stories.
Storms roaming around.
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Re: Storms roaming around.
Not personally at the time to harvest crops, but work travels within the country have let me see first hand some of the crop areas over here, Be it the Pineapples around Ciudad Isla, Veracruz, Sugarcane in Izucar de Matamoros, Puebla, Bananas in Tabasco, Coffee around Xalapa, Oranges near Martínez de la Torre, Papayas in the Balsas River basin in Guerrero and Michoacán hot land, Guavas in Aguascalientes, Grapes and Dates in Sonora, Corn almost everywhere... along with Beef, Pork, Chicken, Lamb and Rabbit farms...
The bad part of being a city dweller is that we are not really familiar or close to the produce regions, we mainly oversee them while on travel or we hear second hand stories about it all. Every now and then someone from the extended family happens to find a real bargain of grade B fruit at a small town (I think since it gets to be so outstanding compared to what we get in Tianguis or Big Box to ponder whether there was any reason from a big middle man to reject such), or find something truly extraordinary after hearing advice from a client...
The bad part of being a city dweller is that we are not really familiar or close to the produce regions, we mainly oversee them while on travel or we hear second hand stories about it all. Every now and then someone from the extended family happens to find a real bargain of grade B fruit at a small town (I think since it gets to be so outstanding compared to what we get in Tianguis or Big Box to ponder whether there was any reason from a big middle man to reject such), or find something truly extraordinary after hearing advice from a client...
Re: Storms roaming around.
Around here some "locally grown" produce that can be purchased in the retail stores. I often wonder exactly what "local" means. It probably refers to any place within 100 miles of town. That local produce most likely does come directly from the farm on which it was grown. At least that is the reason why I buy it. Some of the sweet peppers have very interesting form factors, but they do taste good. On some occasions certain items will look first or second class. Given that the rest of it is not up to that level I am guessing they got it at a bargain price. There probably was an excess supply of that particular item and prices were reduced to move it along. The pandemic has also contributed to some rare finds. Since most of the restaurants were closed or had very limited service, all the produce that went to them was diverted to the retail stores. Some high quality bananas showed up, for example, but things are started to get back to normal. It's back to bruised and blemished over at Schnucks.
Re: Storms roaming around.
We drive out to Grainger County during tomato picking season to get our tomatoes, else we just get what was shipped in from our local mom n pop store at more than double or triple the price.
Re: Storms roaming around.
At about 50¢ a mile to drive a car the cost for driving to the next county might exceed the cost of buying at the local store. But then there are other benefits to being out in the country and picking your own. 
Re: Storms roaming around.
I've not been back out to Grainger County since I totaled my 97 Original Purchase Blazer.
It took me a year to find another one, but it's not the same as my baby with TLC.
FWIW: The tomato farmers are always experimenting with new varieties. Some are too soft for packaging and shipping but have super great and juicy taste. Others are as hard as the cannonballs you get during the winter. But these specially grown tomatoes they can't package for shipping are the ones we try to get when they have the good soft juicy ones.
Many of the old varieties we were used to growing up are usually not available commercially grown.
Like Beefsteak, BigBoy, BetterBoy, etc. When we had the hydroponic rooftop greenhouses going down in the city, the only two tomatoes I suggested they raise in them were SuperSonic and JetStar. Both had the same texture, juice, meat, and flavor, plus were just hard enough for local shipping. SuperSonic produce early and well during the summer, and JetStar produced a little later, and did better with shorter daylength and cooler evenings. If I recall correctly from 40 years ago hi hi.
It took me a year to find another one, but it's not the same as my baby with TLC.
FWIW: The tomato farmers are always experimenting with new varieties. Some are too soft for packaging and shipping but have super great and juicy taste. Others are as hard as the cannonballs you get during the winter. But these specially grown tomatoes they can't package for shipping are the ones we try to get when they have the good soft juicy ones.
Many of the old varieties we were used to growing up are usually not available commercially grown.
Like Beefsteak, BigBoy, BetterBoy, etc. When we had the hydroponic rooftop greenhouses going down in the city, the only two tomatoes I suggested they raise in them were SuperSonic and JetStar. Both had the same texture, juice, meat, and flavor, plus were just hard enough for local shipping. SuperSonic produce early and well during the summer, and JetStar produced a little later, and did better with shorter daylength and cooler evenings. If I recall correctly from 40 years ago hi hi.
Re: Storms roaming around.
Back when I lived in a Chicago suburb I could drive out to the edge of civilization to where there was a true farmer's market. It was a huge farm of many hundreds of acres where they grew everything they sold in the open air market store. This included flowers which they may have not grown all locally. It was a huge operation to say the least but apparently privately owned and in business for decades. They had certain patches of land where you could go pick your own, such as this time of the year you could go out in the fields and grab a pumpkin still on the dried up vine. LOL It was a fun place and the prices were reasonable, not necessarily cheap. However, everything I ever bought there was of superior quality. They had their fancy produce packaged and pretty, but they also had those malformed veggies and fruits that typically get put in the dumpster at the retail stores. Some of the best tomatoes had two or three visible lobes with weird shapes and colors. They were something like vintage tomatoes but being orphaned as they were they didn't specify what exactly they were. All I know is that some of the best tomatoes I've tasted outside my own garden came from that place. I might be missing something here in Missouri. It's hard to imagine such farmer's markets don't exist around here.
Re: Storms roaming around.
Oh there are farmers markets all over Missouri. Heck, even in Kirkwood there is one that has been in operation for over a hundred years. Local farmers all come and bring the produce or crops they raised to sell there.
We used to drive out to St. Charles open air market every fall to get several things to can. They were usually open from the 1st day of summer daily, and in the fall they cut back to weekends, and shut down in the winter.
Check around, I think you might be surprised at how many little farmers markets there are around you, not to mention all the little private farms who have small open air markets.
We used to drive out to St. Charles open air market every fall to get several things to can. They were usually open from the 1st day of summer daily, and in the fall they cut back to weekends, and shut down in the winter.
Check around, I think you might be surprised at how many little farmers markets there are around you, not to mention all the little private farms who have small open air markets.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I must admit that part of my disappointment is due to lack of research. If it's not visible from my drive down Main Street, I probably am missing it. LOL I liked Kirkwood but didn't get a chance to explore a lot of the business district. I've been to St Charles a few times and also am impressed with the shops in their Old Town area. It's a pretty big city and perhaps if I looked long and hard enough I could find anything I want or need there alone. But, it is St Charles and not O'Fallon. I'm a spoiled city brat who didn't have to drive more than ten minutes to be surrounded by literally thousands of stores and shops. I would not expect that kind of density here and the distances apart are not conducive to exploration. Now that I've been here 5+ years, if I had to move again it would be to or near Chesterfield. Everything I have searched for ends up being in that town, or in St Louis proper.
I haven't seen any of those little farm stands in many years, but as I noted above I've not explored the rural areas a whole lot. Those places typically have very little variety, but the veggies (and sometimes eggs) they do sell are usually worth the time to find them.
I haven't seen any of those little farm stands in many years, but as I noted above I've not explored the rural areas a whole lot. Those places typically have very little variety, but the veggies (and sometimes eggs) they do sell are usually worth the time to find them.
Re: Storms roaming around.
You are pointing it correctly, Dennis. It's all a matter of density, and of mobility. As you point out, It's not always worth driving 6 miles just to but a thing or two at your nearest Costco, to say someplace, so it makes mores sense to drive two or three to go either to the nearest Schnucks or Walmart. If you had most of the main chain stores within one or two miles it would be a different story. Yet for it to be affordable for them as business, the population density and the purchase power must rise accordingly. That brings another problem, that instead of having immaculate nighborhoods as the one you are living in, most lots would have to be way smaller and neghborhood street design must change to accommodate that extra population, so the Cul-de-Sac design has to give way to a grid or a walking friendly design like in neighborhoods built before the WWII.
It is all also a trade off of the way cities are designed and the way people are educated in the ideals of the way of living. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's the way we got to be used to live.
It is all also a trade off of the way cities are designed and the way people are educated in the ideals of the way of living. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's the way we got to be used to live.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I lived more than the first twenty years of my life inside the city of Chicago proper. The houses there were on lots with 30 foot frontage. Apartment buildings were on the same sized lots but had no vacant land to speak of. I could literally touch my neighbor's house with my back touching the outside of my own house. Well, it was a little bit of a stretch but could not have even been 10 feet between houses. Those were the days I could walk across the street or down the block and do my grocery shopping. Owning an automobile was unnecessary because the public transportation was readily available if you could not walk to the store of interest. It certainly was all very normal and nobody felt uncomfortable with the housing situation even though the density was high.
Each move I made was more and more removed from the inner city. I'm now living in what is officially a city of 80+ thousand people, which is about the same size of the village I left behind in Illinois. The difference is that here those little cities are several miles apart with countryside in between. Back home there was no space between the 80 thousand cities. They were all adjacent so that eventually a satellite view would show 10 million people living in the same population center.
That high density living was costly, but the jobs were plentiful and paid well which made it all affordable. The diversity of the local economy was breath taking, as were the people who populated the area. I considered myself well read and fortunate to be exposed to many different cultures while living in the Chicago area. Thus the lifestyle here in Missouri was expected to be different, but what is commonly called the culture shock was unexpected. It's hard to put into words. The people here are different all right, and so is the mindset. Most of the time I feel as if I'm on vacation from my regular life. It's quite enjoyable and beautiful in many respects. But, then, there are times when I ask myself, "What am I doing here? I don't belong."
Each move I made was more and more removed from the inner city. I'm now living in what is officially a city of 80+ thousand people, which is about the same size of the village I left behind in Illinois. The difference is that here those little cities are several miles apart with countryside in between. Back home there was no space between the 80 thousand cities. They were all adjacent so that eventually a satellite view would show 10 million people living in the same population center.
That high density living was costly, but the jobs were plentiful and paid well which made it all affordable. The diversity of the local economy was breath taking, as were the people who populated the area. I considered myself well read and fortunate to be exposed to many different cultures while living in the Chicago area. Thus the lifestyle here in Missouri was expected to be different, but what is commonly called the culture shock was unexpected. It's hard to put into words. The people here are different all right, and so is the mindset. Most of the time I feel as if I'm on vacation from my regular life. It's quite enjoyable and beautiful in many respects. But, then, there are times when I ask myself, "What am I doing here? I don't belong."
Re: Storms roaming around.
Moving from St. Louis County, to South Knoxville, was for me the biggest cultural shock I ever experienced.
Most of the things we had back home, not only did they not have down here, but in many cases never even heard of them.
And then the language barrier is another thing. The Southern language is quite a bit different than Mid-Western language. And I'm not talking about Slang, I mean the everyday language. Southerners have very few words in their vocabulary!
One example is things on wheels. Back home we had hand trucks, shopping carts, flat bed carts, wagons, baby strollers, cars, trucks, automobiles, and trash bins on wheels. Down south here, if it has wheels on it, no matter what it is, its a BUGGY, hi hi.
All my life, anything I ever needed for personal or commercial use, was located within 3-1/2 miles from my house.
I moved down here and there is basically nothing for miles, per se.
I used to tease my back home relatives by telling them, how far away everything was, although not really, hi hi.
Although, when I first moved down here, the closest big box hardware stores were in Alcoa, TN. That's a long ways from here!
Commercial items I needed for my business I had to get from St. Louis. Now the bottle company I get my bottles from does have a plant here in Memphis, TN, the other side of the state, widthwise, hi hi. But the price to ship here from there is much higher than shipping from St. Louis to here, which in a way doesn't make sense to me. St. Louis ships my item to Nashville and another carrier brings it to my door. Memphis also ships to Nashville then to my door by a 3rd party carrier. If they deliver from Memphis to Knoxville direct, it is double the price of doing the switcheroo in Nashville. However, the St. Louis plant has established carriers that run to Nashville daily and the second carrier runs from Nashville to Knoxville daily, so give the best rates.
But I will say this, now that I've lived here for 20 years. I like it better here than I did in St. Louis County for many reasons. And that is saying a lot since I had the idea house in the ideal location back home. Just something about living on a mountain that makes all the difference in the world. And we have MasterCard to help simplify our hectic lives, if you remember that commercial.
Most of the things we had back home, not only did they not have down here, but in many cases never even heard of them.
And then the language barrier is another thing. The Southern language is quite a bit different than Mid-Western language. And I'm not talking about Slang, I mean the everyday language. Southerners have very few words in their vocabulary!
One example is things on wheels. Back home we had hand trucks, shopping carts, flat bed carts, wagons, baby strollers, cars, trucks, automobiles, and trash bins on wheels. Down south here, if it has wheels on it, no matter what it is, its a BUGGY, hi hi.
All my life, anything I ever needed for personal or commercial use, was located within 3-1/2 miles from my house.
I moved down here and there is basically nothing for miles, per se.
I used to tease my back home relatives by telling them, how far away everything was, although not really, hi hi.
Although, when I first moved down here, the closest big box hardware stores were in Alcoa, TN. That's a long ways from here!
Commercial items I needed for my business I had to get from St. Louis. Now the bottle company I get my bottles from does have a plant here in Memphis, TN, the other side of the state, widthwise, hi hi. But the price to ship here from there is much higher than shipping from St. Louis to here, which in a way doesn't make sense to me. St. Louis ships my item to Nashville and another carrier brings it to my door. Memphis also ships to Nashville then to my door by a 3rd party carrier. If they deliver from Memphis to Knoxville direct, it is double the price of doing the switcheroo in Nashville. However, the St. Louis plant has established carriers that run to Nashville daily and the second carrier runs from Nashville to Knoxville daily, so give the best rates.
But I will say this, now that I've lived here for 20 years. I like it better here than I did in St. Louis County for many reasons. And that is saying a lot since I had the idea house in the ideal location back home. Just something about living on a mountain that makes all the difference in the world. And we have MasterCard to help simplify our hectic lives, if you remember that commercial.
Re: Storms roaming around.
Talking about shipping costs, I don't think I'll ever understand how big box stores make any profit. A few days ago I decided that our granite kitchen counter needed to be sealed. Water just soaked right in without stopping a while on the surface. I didn't have any left over from the last time I did this so I figured I'd have to buy a bottle from somewhere. I was at Schnuks and found some cleaner but no sealer. On the way home I stopped at the hardware store, but as I frequently am told around here they don't stock it because they don't get many calls for it. Before I decided to go back out into the wilds I looked up the sealer on the Internet. Lots of shops sell the stuff and in a variety of brands. Home Depot, however, had exactly what I was looking for and offered free 2 day delivery. The price was what I expected so that I could hardly believe they would deliver it free. I ordered it and sure enough, two days later, Sunday, the package was placed on my front porch by FedEx.
I know FedEx has a major distribution center in Earth City, but they apparently have one in St Peters too; the next town over from us. I suppose that cut down on the distance but two day FedEx delivery is a premium at most other online stores. I paid nothing for shipping in this case and am wondering how in the world Home Depot managed to make a profit on this sale.
Your story about buggies is interesting in that I had a similar experience a few years ago at this same Hope Depot that has crazy free home delivery service. I needed a hand truck to replace the one I left at my old house because I didn't think I'd need one down here. LOL Since I was a n00bie to Home Depot a la O'Fallon I had to ask a clerk where they kept the hand trucks so that I can buy one. He gave me a blank stare obviously not knowing what the heck I was asking for. I tried to describe it and what it is used for. A light bulb suddenly lit up over his head and he pointed me at aisle 14 on the right side of the wall. Well, when I got to aisle 14 there were no hand trucks, but there were a lot of shopping carts on the right side. I found them eventually in the garden center. Yes, of course. It must be a garden tool down here in Missouri. Why didn't I think of that?
I know FedEx has a major distribution center in Earth City, but they apparently have one in St Peters too; the next town over from us. I suppose that cut down on the distance but two day FedEx delivery is a premium at most other online stores. I paid nothing for shipping in this case and am wondering how in the world Home Depot managed to make a profit on this sale.
Your story about buggies is interesting in that I had a similar experience a few years ago at this same Hope Depot that has crazy free home delivery service. I needed a hand truck to replace the one I left at my old house because I didn't think I'd need one down here. LOL Since I was a n00bie to Home Depot a la O'Fallon I had to ask a clerk where they kept the hand trucks so that I can buy one. He gave me a blank stare obviously not knowing what the heck I was asking for. I tried to describe it and what it is used for. A light bulb suddenly lit up over his head and he pointed me at aisle 14 on the right side of the wall. Well, when I got to aisle 14 there were no hand trucks, but there were a lot of shopping carts on the right side. I found them eventually in the garden center. Yes, of course. It must be a garden tool down here in Missouri. Why didn't I think of that?
Re: Storms roaming around.
Don't know about how FedEx bills big customers, but I know quite a bit about UPS and the deep discounts they offer.
Even small shops if they have enough outgoing shipping can get the 500 pound rate tier.
For over 15 years, I would ship my AZ-NO3 product out in 500 pound shipments, but to a single address, so this got the 500 lb rate.
But then when I had the receiver paying the bill, I was surprised when he said he wanted me to ship to his other two warehouses in different states. But make sure the total order when I call it in is 500 pounds. So it didn't matter if 200 pounds when here, 200 pounds there, and 100 pounds to another place, as long as the total pickup order was 500 pounds.
My brother got the same rate on every box, large or small, didn't matter. Every box was the same price. All he had to supply was the number of boxes to be billed for. Where they went didn't matter. But also, back then, UPS would pick up a full trailer and drop of an empty one at the same time. After he downsized his company, he lost that full trailer load rate.
Every time I've had to use FedEx it has been a royal pain in the arse!
I used to have several different types of 2-wheeled hand trucks. One I had was designed to carry cylinders, but could still be used for other things, it was just the cross slats on the vertical bars were bowed back instead of flat.
Then I had one designed to hold small boxes, it had a screen like back and two shelves that you could move up and down then flip down to lock them in place. Or you could leave the movable shelves up and use it to haul something big.
I used to have one of those with the fold down front with small wheels, sorta like those UPS carries with them. Sold it for double of what I paid for it, which was OK, I never really liked it much. It was OK to haul things around inside a house I was working on, but it wasn't so good for much of anything else.
You wouldn't believe how much money those hardware stores make from sales each day.
Even the smaller chains like Ace Hardware. Their stores average over 12,000 dollars in sales per day, each.
Smaller independent hardware stores now struggle to make 3,000 bucks in sales per day.
Even small shops if they have enough outgoing shipping can get the 500 pound rate tier.
For over 15 years, I would ship my AZ-NO3 product out in 500 pound shipments, but to a single address, so this got the 500 lb rate.
But then when I had the receiver paying the bill, I was surprised when he said he wanted me to ship to his other two warehouses in different states. But make sure the total order when I call it in is 500 pounds. So it didn't matter if 200 pounds when here, 200 pounds there, and 100 pounds to another place, as long as the total pickup order was 500 pounds.
My brother got the same rate on every box, large or small, didn't matter. Every box was the same price. All he had to supply was the number of boxes to be billed for. Where they went didn't matter. But also, back then, UPS would pick up a full trailer and drop of an empty one at the same time. After he downsized his company, he lost that full trailer load rate.
Every time I've had to use FedEx it has been a royal pain in the arse!
I used to have several different types of 2-wheeled hand trucks. One I had was designed to carry cylinders, but could still be used for other things, it was just the cross slats on the vertical bars were bowed back instead of flat.
Then I had one designed to hold small boxes, it had a screen like back and two shelves that you could move up and down then flip down to lock them in place. Or you could leave the movable shelves up and use it to haul something big.
I used to have one of those with the fold down front with small wheels, sorta like those UPS carries with them. Sold it for double of what I paid for it, which was OK, I never really liked it much. It was OK to haul things around inside a house I was working on, but it wasn't so good for much of anything else.
You wouldn't believe how much money those hardware stores make from sales each day.
Even the smaller chains like Ace Hardware. Their stores average over 12,000 dollars in sales per day, each.
Smaller independent hardware stores now struggle to make 3,000 bucks in sales per day.
Re: Storms roaming around.
The reason I needed a hand truck was because I ordered a gun safe that weighed 130+ pounds. I watched the UPS guy carry it out of his truck and plop it down inside my garage where I asked him to put it. When I tried to lift it my back nearly broke. The ultimate destination for this safe was my basement and I knew a hand truck would be the best way to get it down my sloping landscape and to the basement patio door. The truck had the standard two wheels, but also had four caster wheels mounted on the vertical bars so that it can be laid down on it's back and moved around that way. The handles to the cart could be removed and mounted at 90 degree angle to the back so that it resembled a push cart. Getting the safe off the garage floor and onto the cart was the problem. I finally resolved that challenge when wife's sister came to visit one day. The three of us were able to lift the safe onto the cart which is where it has remained to this day. So, if anyone wants to break in and steal the safe, it would be quite easy for them to haul it away. LOL
Well I figured places like Home Depot, WalMart, and Target all have some kind of bulk rate with the major transport people. Paying by the pound or by the number of boxes makes billing real easy and the costs can be amortized over many shipments. So maybe it only costs Home Depot a dollar to have FedEx bring my bottle of sealer to my front door. But really, to do it in 2 days is a premium service. I am truly impressed.
It's hard to gauge the sales volume of the hardware store near to my home. It's not a real big store and about half the time I go there they don't have what I am looking for. The parking lot always has a car or two in it, but to generate $12k in sales I'd expect them to have a lot more traffic. This store is in an ideal location where there are very few other retail shops of any kind. That's the way the north side of town was designed. They could make a killing if they ran it to compete with Home Depot. I'd even be willing to pay a little bit more if they only had what I was in need of. But they don't, so I seldom bother with them. Apparently they don't need my business. They've been there for dozens of years and are one of those mom and pop operations I figured would be extinct by now. Miracles do happen, I suppose.
Well I figured places like Home Depot, WalMart, and Target all have some kind of bulk rate with the major transport people. Paying by the pound or by the number of boxes makes billing real easy and the costs can be amortized over many shipments. So maybe it only costs Home Depot a dollar to have FedEx bring my bottle of sealer to my front door. But really, to do it in 2 days is a premium service. I am truly impressed.
It's hard to gauge the sales volume of the hardware store near to my home. It's not a real big store and about half the time I go there they don't have what I am looking for. The parking lot always has a car or two in it, but to generate $12k in sales I'd expect them to have a lot more traffic. This store is in an ideal location where there are very few other retail shops of any kind. That's the way the north side of town was designed. They could make a killing if they ran it to compete with Home Depot. I'd even be willing to pay a little bit more if they only had what I was in need of. But they don't, so I seldom bother with them. Apparently they don't need my business. They've been there for dozens of years and are one of those mom and pop operations I figured would be extinct by now. Miracles do happen, I suppose.
Last edited by yogi on 13 Oct 2021, 21:50, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I forget now what my soapstone stove weighed, but it was over 200 pounds I'm sure, probably closer to 400 pounds.
It was a real experience getting it moved to where I wanted it. I used a come-along over the ceiling joists, hi hi.
Not sure about how FedEx does things. But many local things handled by UPS never end up going to a hub at all.
Most of the local deliveries are swapped between route drivers at the local terminal.
And if the pick-up and drop-off are on the drivers same route, you might get it within an hour or two, or the next day.
I know my driver who stopped here for my outbound orders always came after he picked up at Elavon. Which is like five miles south of me. If I ordered something from a store between Elavon and my house, and if he was stopping at my house anyhow, he would deliver it to me without even taking it to the terminal. Unless it was a store on his inbound trip to the terminal after he left my place.
I'm not to fond of FedEx, most of their drivers apparently cannot read English, or either just don't care where they are supposed to make a delivery to. Some even go out of the way to hide packages from you, outside, in the rain.
Then too, UPS loves to destroy packages, and in a few cases went the extra mile to sabotage a whole order of several cases.
It was a real experience getting it moved to where I wanted it. I used a come-along over the ceiling joists, hi hi.
Not sure about how FedEx does things. But many local things handled by UPS never end up going to a hub at all.
Most of the local deliveries are swapped between route drivers at the local terminal.
And if the pick-up and drop-off are on the drivers same route, you might get it within an hour or two, or the next day.
I know my driver who stopped here for my outbound orders always came after he picked up at Elavon. Which is like five miles south of me. If I ordered something from a store between Elavon and my house, and if he was stopping at my house anyhow, he would deliver it to me without even taking it to the terminal. Unless it was a store on his inbound trip to the terminal after he left my place.
I'm not to fond of FedEx, most of their drivers apparently cannot read English, or either just don't care where they are supposed to make a delivery to. Some even go out of the way to hide packages from you, outside, in the rain.
Then too, UPS loves to destroy packages, and in a few cases went the extra mile to sabotage a whole order of several cases.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I can relate to that. Sad to say, that Silver Yogi came to you via UPS.Then too, UPS loves to destroy packages, and in a few cases went the extra mile to sabotage a whole order of several cases.
One morning I ordered something simple from WalMart, and they too were offering free shipping. The confirmation e-mail had an estimate delivery date which turned out to be the same day I ordered it. I figured that was a mistake and thought nothing of it. But sure enough, later that afternoon the WalMart package was delivered. I didn't see who the carrier was but I was floored by the promptness and the cost.
Most stores offer "free" delivery when ordering online, but they have a minimum order amount for that to happen. WalMart used to be something like $25 when I first discovered shopping on the Internet. Now they are up to $40 minimum and sometimes it goes higher. Walgreens had a minimum order until the pandemic set in. They changed their policy so that there are no shipping charges on anything. That has been the case for probably about a year now. Perhaps other shops do the same thing but the local Walgreens will take anything back that I ordered online from them. This includes things they don't stock in the store. I ordered some stockings one day in the wrong size and returned them to the store. At that time they were not selling these stockings in their store at all. WalMart will do the same thing, but the lines are A LOT shorter at Walgreens.
Last edited by yogi on 14 Oct 2021, 17:17, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I'm pretty sure what happened with one of my orders valued at over 1000 dollars.
A box set on a high shelf in the truck probably fell on a corner causing it to bust open, sending slippery sugar water everywhere.
This was a 10 case shipment too.
One case had a hole in the side like it was run into with a fork lift.
And as always, UPS never pays up on their insurance, so I said I want the shipment back here to examine.
Five of the ten case shipment were OK, however, they were opened and all the contents dumped out and into the cases which ruined everything in each case.
Plus they used some of their own boxes to dump over 300 bottles, all opened, but the caps were still on, and the bottles were empty. There is no way the product could come out of a closed and sealed bottle, and the caps be put back on tight, unless it was sabotage.
The careless driver was probably disgruntled that the messed up and then ended up with a mess to clean out of his truck.
There was also one UPS hub in Nevada where every order I had that went through that hub ended up with a case missing or severely damaged. This is one reason I switched to smaller 2 carton cases, from the original 4 carton cases. Even then UPS has managed to bust a 2 carton case open a few times. But none of the bottles leaked, so they just wrapped more tape around the case and sent it on its way.
I can drop a case on its corner from 4 feet in the air, a dozen times. The shipping rules say 3 feet six times is good.
But UPS will always come up with some reason not to pay for a package they damage.
Now if it sounds like I'm harping on UPS, let me tell you FedEx has traditionally been 100 times worse for me, and my brother too for that matter.
Before I was selling my AZ-NO3 product, I was selling a kit to recharge blended resin deionization columns. Due to the nature of the product, I had to use a special shipping carton, basically it was indestructible. Even empty you could drop the box on the floor and stand on it, even jump up and down on it and it normally would not crush. Once the products were inside the box, it was next to impossible to crush. But just in case, there were specially made absorbent pads in both ends of the box, and the product bottles were inside of a heavy mill UN approved bag that was also sealed.
Each of the two ingredients used were individually hazmat item, but together they were neutral and not hazmat.
UPS did not like to handle ORMD shipments, so I went with FedEx. Now although they never damaged one of these boxes, they did manage to lose a high number of them. When they lose something after 30 days they will pay you the insured value. But somehow before the 30 days are up, they usually find it and send it back to me, but not to the person who was supposed to get it. A couple of times, they actually opened the boxes to see what was inside and put them in a larger box to send back to me. They didn't find anything amiss, and said the packaging was up to their standards at the time.
Two things about FedEx back then was, their price was nearly double of UPS, and if they had to return something to me, they charged me a second shipping fee. I would say for every 20 boxes I shipped via FedEx, 2 wouldn't make it to their destination, and only 1 would end up coming back to me. Oh, and they charged like 4 times more than UPS for a pick-up run.
A box set on a high shelf in the truck probably fell on a corner causing it to bust open, sending slippery sugar water everywhere.
This was a 10 case shipment too.
One case had a hole in the side like it was run into with a fork lift.
And as always, UPS never pays up on their insurance, so I said I want the shipment back here to examine.
Five of the ten case shipment were OK, however, they were opened and all the contents dumped out and into the cases which ruined everything in each case.
Plus they used some of their own boxes to dump over 300 bottles, all opened, but the caps were still on, and the bottles were empty. There is no way the product could come out of a closed and sealed bottle, and the caps be put back on tight, unless it was sabotage.
The careless driver was probably disgruntled that the messed up and then ended up with a mess to clean out of his truck.
There was also one UPS hub in Nevada where every order I had that went through that hub ended up with a case missing or severely damaged. This is one reason I switched to smaller 2 carton cases, from the original 4 carton cases. Even then UPS has managed to bust a 2 carton case open a few times. But none of the bottles leaked, so they just wrapped more tape around the case and sent it on its way.
I can drop a case on its corner from 4 feet in the air, a dozen times. The shipping rules say 3 feet six times is good.
But UPS will always come up with some reason not to pay for a package they damage.
Now if it sounds like I'm harping on UPS, let me tell you FedEx has traditionally been 100 times worse for me, and my brother too for that matter.
Before I was selling my AZ-NO3 product, I was selling a kit to recharge blended resin deionization columns. Due to the nature of the product, I had to use a special shipping carton, basically it was indestructible. Even empty you could drop the box on the floor and stand on it, even jump up and down on it and it normally would not crush. Once the products were inside the box, it was next to impossible to crush. But just in case, there were specially made absorbent pads in both ends of the box, and the product bottles were inside of a heavy mill UN approved bag that was also sealed.
Each of the two ingredients used were individually hazmat item, but together they were neutral and not hazmat.
UPS did not like to handle ORMD shipments, so I went with FedEx. Now although they never damaged one of these boxes, they did manage to lose a high number of them. When they lose something after 30 days they will pay you the insured value. But somehow before the 30 days are up, they usually find it and send it back to me, but not to the person who was supposed to get it. A couple of times, they actually opened the boxes to see what was inside and put them in a larger box to send back to me. They didn't find anything amiss, and said the packaging was up to their standards at the time.
Two things about FedEx back then was, their price was nearly double of UPS, and if they had to return something to me, they charged me a second shipping fee. I would say for every 20 boxes I shipped via FedEx, 2 wouldn't make it to their destination, and only 1 would end up coming back to me. Oh, and they charged like 4 times more than UPS for a pick-up run.
Re: Storms roaming around.
I order juice that is packaged in a coated cardboard box. It's obnoxious as all hell, but I guess there are some advantages to storing square cardboard boxes compared to round glass bottles. The disadvantage is that the cardboard boxes are easily damaged. Oddly enough the damage is not to the cardboard but to the plastic screw on spout they punch into the top. Being what it is I can only get this stuff online by ordering six at a time, or more. There are two or three sources for this juice and the way the packages are packed are different in each case. The cheapest place I order from has a single corrugated box exactly the size of those six juice boxes. That makes it easy to pack and ship I'm sure. However, of late every time I've ordered from this company, the juice boxes arrive damaged. One time UPS delivered a soaking wet box to my doorstep. It sat there for a while before I noticed it and the juice from inside the box leaked out and soaked into the pavement. Well, I was pissed but the company had no problems with my request to resend an unbroken order. That one arrived damaged too via UPS but not nearly as bad a the first one. The two other places I can get this juice put bubble pack or a couple inches of packing popcorn around the juice and ship it that way. It always arrives in tact. I wrote the first company explaining why I will never deal with them again, and not surprisingly never got a response. You would think that the juice supplier is at fault, but the damage was done by UPS. I'm certain they have sorting machines that are not too gentle, and loading a truck involves a lot of tossing and throwing. Be that as it may, when things are packaged properly they can survive the UPS delivery fiasco.
Re: Storms roaming around.
When I first started shipping with UPS their rules were much different than they are today, and most of their rules are only designed so they can get out of paying insurance on the packages they damaged.
The first five or six years, I got an A+ for my packaging. Nothing about my packaging changed for another 5 years. I was placing a dozen plastic bottles in a carton, and four cartons in a case. Only now my packing method didn't fit their new rules. They wanted a 2" space around each of the cartons, top, bottom, and all four sides. Because I was using only a Styrofoam Cell top, bottom, and perimeter, and had the four cartons together in the middle. When they damaged a shipment, they wouldn't pay for it.
So I went back to not using the Styrofoam outer box liner, which was expensive and the boxes were much larger too.
I also changed to putting only 2 cartons per case, so they weighed half as much. Didn't have any damage for a long time because these are really rigid boxes. But when I did, they wouldn't pay again because, and can you dig this, because I did not have the individual bottles separated by a soft crumple egg crate.
Now I buy a lot of ingredients to make my product, and they all come more poorly packaged than the products I send out. And they are not taped very well either. A couple of the ingredients I used came in small glass bottles for years. Now they were separated with a thin cardboard egg crate but were packaged in a super thin flimsy box, like bakery box thin, then that box is stuck in a larger box with only bubble bag packaging. About the way some Amazon stuff comes, so loose in the box the items in the box bounce around.
You would not believe how well my product is packaged. In the carton goes a plastic bag, and in the bottom of the bag is a special paper that absorbs water like a sponge. Then a dozen bottles go in the box, and another special paper on top, then the bag is sealed, and finally the carton sealed. The carton itself is 75 pound test corrugated cardboard, the same size used for shipping cartons. But two of these go into an overwrap case rated at 150 burst strength, which is way overkill to start with.
Or put this way, instead of using 1 dollar overwrap cases, I'm using $2.25 overwrap cases. You can throw a case down the driveway like a bowling ball and it will survive just fine. So how does UPS manage to shatter a case or two or three?
The first five or six years, I got an A+ for my packaging. Nothing about my packaging changed for another 5 years. I was placing a dozen plastic bottles in a carton, and four cartons in a case. Only now my packing method didn't fit their new rules. They wanted a 2" space around each of the cartons, top, bottom, and all four sides. Because I was using only a Styrofoam Cell top, bottom, and perimeter, and had the four cartons together in the middle. When they damaged a shipment, they wouldn't pay for it.
So I went back to not using the Styrofoam outer box liner, which was expensive and the boxes were much larger too.
I also changed to putting only 2 cartons per case, so they weighed half as much. Didn't have any damage for a long time because these are really rigid boxes. But when I did, they wouldn't pay again because, and can you dig this, because I did not have the individual bottles separated by a soft crumple egg crate.
Now I buy a lot of ingredients to make my product, and they all come more poorly packaged than the products I send out. And they are not taped very well either. A couple of the ingredients I used came in small glass bottles for years. Now they were separated with a thin cardboard egg crate but were packaged in a super thin flimsy box, like bakery box thin, then that box is stuck in a larger box with only bubble bag packaging. About the way some Amazon stuff comes, so loose in the box the items in the box bounce around.
You would not believe how well my product is packaged. In the carton goes a plastic bag, and in the bottom of the bag is a special paper that absorbs water like a sponge. Then a dozen bottles go in the box, and another special paper on top, then the bag is sealed, and finally the carton sealed. The carton itself is 75 pound test corrugated cardboard, the same size used for shipping cartons. But two of these go into an overwrap case rated at 150 burst strength, which is way overkill to start with.
Or put this way, instead of using 1 dollar overwrap cases, I'm using $2.25 overwrap cases. You can throw a case down the driveway like a bowling ball and it will survive just fine. So how does UPS manage to shatter a case or two or three?