Corporate Ineptitude: The Way We Do Business

Today's glutton for punishment:

• Create an account at one of two major US shipping providers (name withheld to protect the guilty);
• Ship a package or a few;
• Bang your head against the wall trying to get a list of packages you've just shipped, without providing a tracking number.

It's not that I don't want to provide the tracking number, it's just the monstrous stupidity of the whole design that makes me speechless. Obviously, people who dictated the user interface design don't ship packages often.

PS: The other one is not much better.

Newegg "Cost Saving" on shipping?

Never had any problems with Newegg's products or delivery before. Every time, they would send up a tracking number, I would go and subscribe to the RSS feed for that number off Boxoh (formerly hosted at isnoop.net), and watch the package happily move towards the destination.

Last time, however, I've ordered something, and, without much thought, left the default (free shipping) shipping method in place, only to realize, to my dismay, after getting the tracking number, that it is now USPS.

Not that I've had any problems with USPS delivery so far, this remains to be seen. But, their package tracking is simply nonexistent - whereas before I could watch the package progress in almost real time and know for sure when the package is out for delivery (and UPS truck arrives within few minutes each time), now the feed only gets the notification (sometimes the only notification) only after the package is delivered.

Which makes package tracking useless, for practical purposes.

Damn.

Well, not all is lost - it's only some of products/product combinations get this shipping method, others are still delivered via UPS. Let's keep fingers crossed that USPS improves their tracking facilities, though, honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

Oh, by the way, almost forgot - the shipping method that results in USPS delivering your package is called "Egg Saver" - watch out.

It is really unfortunate that Newegg decided to compromise on something they've been always known for excellent quality of - shipping.

UPDATE: Just like I was expecting, delivery progress notification sucked. I was furious when I saw the RSS update about being delivered at 15:38 published at about 23:00, especially since nothing was delivered, and I was home. On a second thought, decided to check the mailbox (knowing that USPS has access to it) - and lo and behold, there it was, crammed into the mailbox, with a crazy mix of delivery agents on it - UPS sticker inside, USPS and DHL Smart Mail labels on the outside.

All in all, turned out fine this time. Delivered in 3 days, no damage (though I was lucky there was nothing bendable or breakable inside - it would've been damaged, like I said, the package was crammed into the mailbox).