On September 30 I ordered RAM from Crucial.com for my MacBook Pro. I got an email that evening from Crucial saying the the package has departed Boise, Idaho, is en route to the destination (Camrose, Alberta, Canada), and should arrive on October 1, the next day. I was very surprised by the fast shipping. I wasn’t expecting the receive my RAM until next week, so seeing that it would arrive the next morning got me excited.
October 1
I woke up on October 1 to see that the package made it to Edmonton, AB (40 minutes away) and was in transit. Everything seemed to be going great until the next update on the tracking website showed that the package was heading off to Memphis, TN. Yes, the package came within 60 KM to me, but FedEx decided to send it on a 7000 KM journey. There is no good reason for this. This is a huge harm to the environment and also adds a huge cost to FedEx, which in turn raises our shipping fees.
October 2
Today is October 2 and I just got my package. I must say that two-day shipping is very fast and I am pleased with FedEx’s service in terms of speed but the journey my package took was not exceptable. I could have easily got my package yesterday but for some reason FedEx found it necessary to send it on a 7000 KM journey around the continent. All together my package went 8500 KM, when the true distance from the origin to the destination was less than 1000 KM. That 8.5x more travel than necessary. 850% more fuel was used than needed to send my package 1000 KM.
Who’s Can I Blame?
Do you blame an algorithm that a software engineer at FedEx developed? Do you blame a FedEx employee in Edmonton who accidentally put the package in the wrong pile? Or is this simply how FedEx thinks packages should be transported?
Were They Purposly Slowing Me Down?
Perhaps I didn’t pay enough for shipping and they didn’t want my package to get to me in less than 24 hours. Maybe they wanted to slow down my package so that I’d have an incentive to get a more expensive shipping method next time. This is probably the true reason why my package took a detour but I still don’t find it acceptable to waste fuel. They can simply hold the package and the sorting facility for longer if they want to slow down the package.
Does It Really Matter?
Does it really matter? I got my package in two days! I am very happy with the speed of FedEx and I will probably use them again but with this waste of fuel, do you think that we should be upset or just accept the methods of this company? Let me know in the comments.
Taxes
Since this package was from the United States I had to pay GST on the item. GST in Canada is 5% so on my $100 package the GST would be $5. Since FedEx becomes your “broker”, they charge a broker fee of $10 + GST. All together they charged me $15.50 for a $100 package. I didn’t want the driver to have to wait at my door so I was forced to give him a $20 bill. This means I ended up paying 20% extra on this item! I don’t mind paying the 5% GST but the FedEx broker charge is ridiculous.