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Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too value to leave to third parties... ...or to leave to the shippi

Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too value to leave to third parties... ...or to leave to the shipping endpoint customer, either. I can't tell you how many clicks it takes to determine when a particular shipment will arrive at my door. Off the top of my head: 0. Email from vendor: "your package has shipped!" 1. Log in to the Fedex account. 2. One would think that post-login that it would take your straight away to the "Manage Your Deliveries" page, because what is the most common action taken by a residential customer post-login? (My guess is, they want to find out when their stuff is going t show up.) But alas, no. It just takes you to the main page, but now you're logged in. 3. Search for that deliveries page...what is it called? Oh, wait, here's a Track button. Nope, that's not the one you want. Go click some more. 4. Finally find the Manage Your Deliveries option in some buried menu. Click it. It won't take your directly to the shipment that you originally were looking for, but it's in the neighborhood. 5. Ah, the Manage Your Deliveries page, where I can find out when the package will arrive. 6. "A label has been created, but the shipment hasn't been dropped off yet, so we haven't the first fucking clue when your package will arrive. But be sure to come back tomorrow to do this whole exercise again!" I'm almost to the point of preferring vendors that use DHL instead of FedEx. It's that bad.

InCityDreams 5y ago
I've no skin in the game but having dealt with tracking a single fedex today, i found it to be a remarkably ok experience. No login, though. Their 'notifications by email' section was pretty messed up.
kccqzy 5y ago
You don't need to log in or even create an account at FedEx just to track deliveries. You just need the tracking number. It's the first thing you see when you go to the homepage of fedex.com
- NavinF 5y ago
  No, the tracking number only shows the delivery date for most carriers. You gotta login to see the delivery time.
- mikestew 5y ago
  This is not news to me. But of the four or so commenters saying basically the same thing (you don't need to log in), it does not seem odd that the user experience sucks less if one does NOT establish at the beginning that one has an account for such things? What the hell is that whole "Manage Delivers" page for, then? But telling me I'm doing it wrong for using an advertised feature, yeah, that's less than useful.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Similarly, if you are not logged into Google, but have a cookie, and try to view a public user-shared document, login wall. No cookie? Document just works.
- tepitoperrito 5y ago
  You do need to login to see information on individual box delivery statuses. Otherwise, you just get the "master tracking number" delivery estimate which seems to be based off of the first box delivery date, not the date all the boxes will have arrived. There's probably a good reason things are that way for delivery tracking (see chesterson's fence). But the rabbit hole doesn't end there! Reports generated from their own customer portal don't include per-box delivery dates. They all show the delivery date of the FIRST box. This is extremely frustrating when trying to make accurate models for forecasting, or even just lead time estimation. They do this to make it harder to compare their services to competitors like DHL (oodles better than FedEX - but there are risk management considerations and also capacity issues) and it ends up harming businesses trying to serve their own customers better. This is especially annoying since they have really granular data internally that go into even more detail than just delivery date on a per box level. Attached is a screenshot of a spreadsheet fed by some internal SQL database and macros that can spit out per box information including delay reason (weather, transit, act of God) and even number of hours late. https://ibb.co/k3sNxYz https://ibb.co/k3sNxYz macro / control sheet https://ibb.co/Zzjw8TV https://ibb.co/Zzjw8TV selected column titles If anyone at FedEX is reading this please consider pushing the narrative that your business customers aren't the end of the line for the goods you move. If anyone who DOESN'T work at FedEX is reading this, I can email you a redacted copy of the spreadsheet I referenced above (just send it to tepitoperrito AT 420blaze DOT it).
bagels 5y ago
Just Google search the tracking number. Google will link to the status.
dylan604 5y ago
How many people receiving FedEx packages from online purchases actually have an account with FedEx to log into? In the words of Steve Jobs, "You're holding it wrong".
Spooky23 5y ago
Sounds like you’re trying to use a delivery portal but didn’t finish setting it up. I use the UPS version as I get alot of UPS packages. They typically email me once the shipment is picked up, typically before the sender does. They have a dashboard where you can see all inbound shipments as well. This requires registration and address validation, but not a UPS “account”.
molticrystal 5y ago
>I can't tell you how many clicks I don't know your situation but it always seemed to be streamline for me to be: 0. Email with tracking number 123456789 1. https://www.fedex.com/fedextrack/?trknbr=123456789 https://www.fedex.com/fedextrack/?trknbr=123456789 into address bar
throwaway48375 5y ago
Can't you just bookmark the "Manage Your Deliveries" page?
baxtr 5y ago
I’m not sure if it works in the FedEx case, but one thing I have noticed: most sites forget where you wanted to go before logging in. So here is what I do: - open the mail link - log in - go back to the mail program and open the link again to bring me to the page I wanted to see in the first place Would that work in your case?
tbran 5y ago
For quick tracking lookups on DuckDuckGo you can do: !usps <tracking-number> !fedex <tracking-number> !ups <tracking-number>

InCityDreams 5y ago

I've no skin in the game but having dealt with tracking a single fedex today, i found it to be a remarkably ok experience. No login, though. Their 'notifications by email' section was pretty messed up.

kccqzy 5y ago

You don't need to log in or even create an account at FedEx just to track deliveries. You just need the tracking number. It's the first thing you see when you go to the homepage of fedex.com

NavinF 5y ago
No, the tracking number only shows the delivery date for most carriers. You gotta login to see the delivery time.
mikestew 5y ago
This is not news to me. But of the four or so commenters saying basically the same thing (you don't need to log in), it does not seem odd that the user experience sucks less if one does NOT establish at the beginning that one has an account for such things? What the hell is that whole "Manage Delivers" page for, then? But telling me I'm doing it wrong for using an advertised feature, yeah, that's less than useful.
- lupire 5y ago
  Similarly, if you are not logged into Google, but have a cookie, and try to view a public user-shared document, login wall. No cookie? Document just works.
tepitoperrito 5y ago
You do need to login to see information on individual box delivery statuses. Otherwise, you just get the "master tracking number" delivery estimate which seems to be based off of the first box delivery date, not the date all the boxes will have arrived. There's probably a good reason things are that way for delivery tracking (see chesterson's fence). But the rabbit hole doesn't end there! Reports generated from their own customer portal don't include per-box delivery dates. They all show the delivery date of the FIRST box. This is extremely frustrating when trying to make accurate models for forecasting, or even just lead time estimation. They do this to make it harder to compare their services to competitors like DHL (oodles better than FedEX - but there are risk management considerations and also capacity issues) and it ends up harming businesses trying to serve their own customers better. This is especially annoying since they have really granular data internally that go into even more detail than just delivery date on a per box level. Attached is a screenshot of a spreadsheet fed by some internal SQL database and macros that can spit out per box information including delay reason (weather, transit, act of God) and even number of hours late. https://ibb.co/k3sNxYz https://ibb.co/k3sNxYz macro / control sheet https://ibb.co/Zzjw8TV https://ibb.co/Zzjw8TV selected column titles If anyone at FedEX is reading this please consider pushing the narrative that your business customers aren't the end of the line for the goods you move. If anyone who DOESN'T work at FedEX is reading this, I can email you a redacted copy of the spreadsheet I referenced above (just send it to tepitoperrito AT 420blaze DOT it).

bagels 5y ago

Just Google search the tracking number. Google will link to the status.

dylan604 5y ago

How many people receiving FedEx packages from online purchases actually have an account with FedEx to log into? In the words of Steve Jobs, "You're holding it wrong".

Spooky23 5y ago

Sounds like you’re trying to use a delivery portal but didn’t finish setting it up. I use the UPS version as I get alot of UPS packages. They typically email me once the shipment is picked up, typically before the sender does. They have a dashboard where you can see all inbound shipments as well. This requires registration and address validation, but not a UPS “account”.

molticrystal 5y ago

>I can't tell you how many clicks I don't know your situation but it always seemed to be streamline for me to be: 0. Email with tracking number 123456789 1. https://www.fedex.com/fedextrack/?trknbr=123456789 https://www.fedex.com/fedextrack/?trknbr=123456789 into address bar

throwaway48375 5y ago

Can't you just bookmark the "Manage Your Deliveries" page?

baxtr 5y ago

I’m not sure if it works in the FedEx case, but one thing I have noticed: most sites forget where you wanted to go before logging in. So here is what I do: - open the mail link - log in - go back to the mail program and open the link again to bring me to the page I wanted to see in the first place Would that work in your case?

tbran 5y ago

For quick tracking lookups on DuckDuckGo you can do: !usps <tracking-number> !fedex <tracking-number> !ups <tracking-number>