J. likes ordering from Woot, but hates FedEx SmartPost, the company’s shipping method of choice. Describing it as “some sort of misbegotten bastard child of FedEx and the US Postal Service,” J. calculates that it would actually be faster to travel from Woot HQ in Texas to his home on Brooklyn by bicycle. Which would be helpful if he weren’t ordering inanimate objects.

J. writes:

I love Woot, and especially their Woot-Offs. I probably make about a purchase a month from them. But I despise that they use a horrible delivery service called FedEx SmartPost, which appears to be some sort of misbegotten bastard child of FedEx and the US Postal Service. Apparently, FedEx picks-up the package and delivers it not to the customer, but to a post office and the USPS makes final delivery.

All would be rainbows and unicorns if not for the fact that this service stinks.

Really, truly, no freaking kidding stinks.

A package that left Dallas on July 21 is still, on July 27, in transit, sitting in Edison, NJ, 35 miles from its final destination of Brooklyn, NY.

Google Maps has the driving time between Dallas and Brooklyn at around 25 hours. In fact, Google Maps says it should take six days and 18 hours to BICYCLE from Dallas to Brooklyn! It has been in transit, according to FedEx tracking, for over 127 hours, and it is not estimated to be delivered until Friday, fully eight days from when it was picked-up, which I think is completely unacceptable.

In fairness to SmartPost, Google Maps does say it would take over 21 days to get from Dallas to Brooklyn on foot, so it is faster than that.

Consumerists?

I can do better than that: it took my Roku more than two weeks to travel from California to my home in upstate New York using SmartPost. It may have covered a significant portion of that distance on the back of a turtle. We’ll never know.

What have your experiences been with SmartPost, Consumerist Hive Mind?

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