An explanation for USPS shenanigans?

I live in Duluth, GA and I ordered a pack of Quest A6 motors from Hobbylinc.com whose warehouse is located about 25 miles from me, as the crow flies. Hobbylinc shipped it out today but....take a look at where it went:



Nevermind that it apparently got there in two and one quarter hours (one time zone change included) which would pretty much be impossible, why in the heck would they ship it all the way to Memphis?!?

This has happened more than once to me and the only common thread that might be present is that I *think* all these were hazmat motor orders. Does anyone know if the USPS folks have to send hazmat packages only through certain locations? That's the only explanation I could think of other than the possibility that they're morons and screwed up.

I'd call them and ask. It is curious.

This has been discussed a number of times; all large scale distribution systems work this way. Look at airlines as a good example. You can't fly from point A to point C which are only 500 miles apart. To get to C you have to fly from point A to point B which is 400 miles, get on another plane and then fly from point B to point C which is another 400 miles. So to go 500 miles you have to actually fly 800 miles. The main reason is that there is not enough demand for a direct flight from A to C. The same applies to packages. Not enough packages travel between where your at and where the motors were shipped from to make it economical to have a truck make that run. Instead, everything from A goes to B. Also going to B are all the packages from D, E, F, G and a bunch of other places. Everything is sorted at the main distribution hub and sent out for delivery.

FedEx may be handling the package. The USPS contracts FedEx to move packages and Memphis is the hub for FedEx.

-- Roger

Zeus-cat said:

This has been discussed a number of times; all large scale distribution systems work this way. Look at airlines as a good example. You can't fly from point A to point C which are only 500 miles apart. To get to C you have to fly from point A to point B which is 400 miles, get on another plane and then fly from point B to point C which is another 400 miles. So to go 500 miles you have to actually fly 800 miles. The main reason is that there is not enough demand for a direct flight from A to C. The same applies to packages. Not enough packages travel between where your at and where the motors were shipped from to make it economical to have a truck make that run. Instead, everything from A goes to B. Also going to B are all the packages from D, E, F, G and a bunch of other places. Everything is sorted at the main distribution hub and sent out for delivery.

Click to expand...

I am aware of the prior discussions of routing, in general, but this doesn't make sense to me in this case because 80% of my orders from this place come straight from Braselton to Atlanta and then Duluth. Still not efficient from a one-off perspective, but in bulk transport it makes sense. It's these couple of outlier shipments that have me scratching my head. I think Roger might have hit the nail on the head, though. It might very well be that it was outsourced to FedEx.

My personal favorite was a flight I took last year, got to San Jose airport and realized that I was still carrying my Leatherman, and didn't feel like paying the $25 each way to check a bag, so I used a FedEx kiosk just outside of the TSA line to mail it home (convenient, at least). The package went from San Jose to Oakland, to Memphis, back to Oakland, then finally to my house in San Jose. I was only heading as far east as Dallas, mind you. So my knife got home a day after I did. It seems sad that something in Oakland couldn't catch the "this will be back here in a few days" and avoid the extra trips, but I guess that extra level of shipping 'smarts' just isn't worth the effort.

And then the sad ending to the story (which I forgot since it feels more like a bad dream at this point), a week later while on another business trip my house got broken into, and the Leatherman which I properly left home that trip was one of many things that got stolen. So in hindsight I might as well have let the TSA confiscate it.

Recently mailed a care package Priority to someone in Madison, WI from a post office here in mid-MI. There were several other packages being sent out as well, but there was a change of clerks in the middle of my session at the counter. The Madison package was the last one handed to the clerk and should have reached it's destination in 3 days. Instead, the Madison package went to St Paul, MN--despite being addressed for Madison--and took 10 days to get to Madison instead of 3. It is believed that the clerk who finished checking in my packages assumed the final package was going the same way as the one before it and tagged it as such. The zip codes for St Paul and Madison are somewhat similar it turns out.

True story: once I was traveling from Milwaukee to Lincoln. I changed in Minneapolis. Twice.