I haven't experienced all of the issues mentioned above because I haven't received my first shipment yet. I can accept that your not going to get Class A service for Class C costs but what I can't accept is the fact that the merchandise is already paid for and it still sits in the queue waiting for shipment. The charge should not be made until the product is shipped.

singert wrote:I haven't experienced all of the issues mentioned above because I haven't received my first shipment yet. I can accept that your not going to get Class A service for Class C costs but what I can't accept is the fact that the merchandise is already paid for and it still sits in the queue waiting for shipment. The charge should not be made until the product is shipped.

They charge you when the shipping label has been created. Even though it may look like your wine is just sitting there, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on due to summer shipping. Read through this thread to get an idea of just how much.

kylemittskus wrote:They charge you when the shipping label has been created. Even though it may look like your wine is just sitting there, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on due to summer shipping. Read through this thread to get an idea of just how much.

Actually, woot charges your card when you make the order. At least whenever I've seen it. Despite the ownership issue, woot is not Amazon and we shouldn't expect the type of speedy shipping Amazon has. Woot has always been a delayed shipping system, and the things WD does behind the scenes to keep things flowing are quite complex. If you want your stuff immediately, get it from Amazon. If you want your stuff for the best price around and don't need it any particular time, get it from woot.

So, five minutes ago I received notification from FedEx that delivery of my Gård Washington whites is scheduled for today. Meanwhile, there has been no notification from woot that the package has shipped, and my Woot Account says that the order is still awaiting shipping with no tracking number available.

noslensj wrote:So, five minutes ago I received notification from FedEx that delivery of my Gård Washington whites is scheduled for today. Meanwhile, there has been no notification from woot that the package has shipped, and my Woot Account says that the order is still awaiting shipping with no tracking number available.

It's the magic of woot shipping. Similar to choose your own adventure but they choose your adventure instead.

noslensj wrote:So, five minutes ago I received notification from FedEx that delivery of my Gård Washington whites is scheduled for today. Meanwhile, there has been no notification from woot that the package has shipped, and my Woot Account says that the order is still awaiting shipping with no tracking number available.

cortot20 wrote:It's the magic of woot shipping. Similar to choose your own adventure but they choose your adventure instead.

Well, I just signed for a package that according to woot has not yet shipped.

noslensj wrote:Well, I just signed for a package that according to woot has not yet shipped.

Looks like you've got TARDIS delivery. It's experimental, so we appreciate knowing it got there!

(Seriously, it's being investigated. We appreciate you keeping us up to date.)

bkarlan wrote:Before you talk to your fedex hub, talk to your fedex driver, that is if you are on good terms.

My fedex driver is my friend and, well we have an agreement (late fall thru early spring about what to do about wine deliveries).

If you and your driver are friends maybe there was something he/she did. If you talk to your hub, you can get him in trouble when in fact he was looking out for you.

On the other hand if you dont have an agreement with your driver, then go to your hub and have a talk with them.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've never met my FedEx driver. I normally work full time so I'm never home for deliveries.

kylemittskus wrote:Conclusion: your FedEx sucks!

Agreed.

inkycatz wrote:Looks like you've got TARDIS delivery. It's experimental, so we appreciate knowing it got there!

(Seriously, it's being investigated. We appreciate you keeping us up to date.)

so, here we are, close to 24 hours after the package was delivered, and woot still wants to assure me that shipment is pending.

noslensj wrote:so, here we are, close to 24 hours after the package was delivered, and woot still wants to assure me that shipment is pending.

Once the time streams converge I'm sure it'll be fixed up.

noslensj wrote:so, here we are, close to 24 hours after the package was delivered, and woot still wants to assure me that shipment is pending.

I'm going to send you a PM for some more information on this issue.

What happened to summer shipping?

There is a shipment of Wellington coming my way via the same method used during the other seasons, IE regular FedEx ground. The shipment will spend 6 days in the back of a FedEx truck.

While the temperatures may have dropped from those of a couple of weeks ago, it is still pretty hot. It was 97F in Reno, where the shipment was yesterday. In much of the country between where I live and Reno it is hotter than 90F today.

Winedavid39 wrote:That should not be the case. save me a step and tell me what state you are recieving the wine. let me check on this. thanks,

The state is Illinois.

And more info:
Ship date Jul 31, 2012
Estimated delivery Aug 6, 2012

Service type:
FedEx Ground-Adult Signature Required-U.S.

Aug 1, 2012 5:40 AM In transit RENO, NV
Aug 1, 2012 2:32 AM Left FedEx origin facility SACRAMENTO, CA
Jul 31, 2012 11:45 PM Arrived at FedEx location SACRAMENTO, CA
Jul 31, 2012 11:16 AM Shipment information sent to FedEx
Jul 31, 2012 Picked up SACRAMENTO, CA

We still have 2+ months of obscenely hot & humid weather left, but looks like summer shipping has ended already.

Two orders that were shipped today were sent via FedEx ground, all the way to New York City, where we are set for increasing temps and humidity starting tomorrow for the next 7 to 10 days.

Here are the two orders/tracking...
Fontinos Brothers PN Tracking

Giornata Aglianico Tracking

So far only the info has been sent to FedEx, maybe it's not too late to get these shipped properly.

I received my Ursa order yesterday, and while it was packed in Styrofoam and there was no obvious damage, the bottles were quite warm when I opened the box. I have heard that ice packs were used in the past. I would really like to see that practice started again. A small ice pack inside the styrofoam for each bottle would really help and sealing the two sides of the styrofoam with a piece of tape so the coolness from the ice packs is held in as much as possible, would also be helpful.

I hate worrying that bottles I was planning on storing for a few years have been exposed to enough heat to shorten the drinking window, and with no way of knowing.

As a side note, is there a reason that summer orders can't be held until October or November, at which time you can ship multiple orders together instead of 2/3/4 bottles per box, and weather won't be a problem? I know some of the Vineyards that sell on WW will do that because they are currently holding bottles for me until Nov.

PS: I have sent a request to service@woot about this, but I'm sure I'll get the same boiler plate answer I get for every wine.woot question I send

mschauber wrote:We still have 2+ months of obscenely hot & humid weather left, but looks like summer shipping has ended already.

Two orders that were shipped today were sent via FedEx ground, all the way to New York City, where we are set for increasing temps and humidity starting tomorrow for the next 7 to 10 days.

Here are the two orders/tracking...
Fontinos Brothers PN Tracking

Giornata Aglianico Tracking

So far only the info has been sent to FedEx, maybe it's not too late to get these shipped properly.

I received my Ursa order yesterday, and while it was packed in Styrofoam and there was no obvious damage, the bottles were quite warm when I opened the box. I have heard that ice packs were used in the past. I would really like to see that practice started again. A small ice pack inside the styrofoam for each bottle would really help and sealing the two sides of the styrofoam with a piece of tape so the coolness from the ice packs is held in as much as possible, would also be helpful.

I hate worrying that bottles I was planning on storing for a few years have been exposed to enough heat to shorten the drinking window, and with no way of knowing.

As a side note, is there a reason that summer orders can't be held until October or November, at which time you can ship multiple orders together instead of 2/3/4 bottles per box, and weather won't be a problem? I know some of the Vineyards that sell on WW will do that because they are currently holding bottles for me until Nov.

PS: I have sent a request to service@woot about this, but I'm sure I'll get the same boiler plate answer I get for every wine.woot question I send

I may be mistaken but I think the Oh in the purchase order number field means they plan to ship it via refrigerated truck to Ohio where Fedex will take over. I could be wrong. But in the past Oh seemed to correspond to Ohio and Ks to Kansas City. Then from Ohio to Chicago the shipment is delivered the next day, and from Ohio to New York it is on the 2nd day.

But in the case of my shipment of Wellington that FedEx Ground is handling all the way from CA, the purchase order field also contains Oh. So who knows?

stratma wrote:I may be mistaken but I think the Oh in the purchase order number field means they plan to ship it via refrigerated truck to Ohio where Fedex will take over. I could be wrong. But in the past Oh seemed to correspond to Ohio and Ks to Kansas City. Then from Ohio to Chicago the shipment is delivered the next day, and from Ohio to New York it is on the 2nd day.

But in the case of my shipment of Wellington that FedEx Ground is handling all the way from CA, the purchase order field also contains Oh. So who knows?

Where do you see oh or ks? There is no purchase order field that I can find and the order #'s are all numerical.

Even KS or OH to NYC in 90 to 100 degree weather, in non-vented trucks that are 135 degrees or hotter, is asking for trouble. I just find it interesting that virtually all wine stores (online or also with brick & morter) either automatically hold shipments in extreme heat like we are going through now or offer the option. That's something WW is missing, especially for shipments that are outside their immediate area.

mschauber wrote:Where do you see oh or ks? There is no purchase order field that I can find and the order #'s are all numerical.

Even KS or OH to NYC in 90 to 100 degree weather, in non-vented trucks that are 135 degrees or hotter, is asking for trouble. I just find it interesting that virtually all wine stores (online or also with brick & morter) either automatically hold shipments in extreme heat like we are going through now or offer the option. That's something WW is missing, especially for shipments that are outside their immediate area.

check out this link to see the PO# field: http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?language=english&cntry_code=us&tracknumbers=747796862939728

I agree the extra time for delivery to NY could be bad. It is odd though that Columbus OH is about halfway between CHI and NYC, but FedEx can deliver to CHI next day but not to NY.

Helpful advice from woot service when asked what happened to summer shipping:

"While I can understand why you'd be nervous about this, at this point it would be best to wait and see what the wine is like when you have received it. Unfortunately, speculating on the quality of wine before receiving it doesn't really do much good. We trust the winery 100 percent to take whatever precautions are necessary to properly ship the wine and strategically around hot weather.
Riley"

The answer does not inspire me to make any more purchases from wine.woot, at least during the summer. I don't think the quality of wine is enhanced when it spends 6 days in the back of a truck when temperatures are 90+. Maybe the wine will be OK, this time. But what about next time?

I still would like to know why summer shipping has seemingly ended.

stratma wrote:Helpful advice from woot service when asked what happened to summer shipping:

"While I can understand why you'd be nervous about this, at this point it would be best to wait and see what the wine is like when you have received it. Unfortunately, speculating on the quality of wine before receiving it doesn't really do much good. We trust the winery 100 percent to take whatever precautions are necessary to properly ship the wine and strategically around hot weather.
Riley"

The answer does not inspire me to make any more purchases from wine.woot, at least during the summer.

Well to be fair, what else would you like them to say? Woot customer service does not do the shipping of the wine, Wine Country Connect or the winery itself does.

North316 wrote:Well to be fair, what else would you like them to say? Woot customer service does not do the shipping of the wine, Wine Country Connect or the winery itself does.

I did not know that. Here I thought woot actually had something to do with instituting special "summer shipping" Good to know they have nothing to do with that so it was a waste of time to ask them about it.

stratma wrote:I still would like to know why summer shipping has seemingly ended.

We have endless threads on this. "Summer Shipping" began months ago and continues, you just don't see the shipping price change from $5 to $7 now; it's built-in, so to speak. WD and WCC have their lively hood invested and at stake here, and are doing the heavy lifting required to insure safe and proper shipping, barring some stupid local delivery pu-wercs.

rjquillin wrote:We have endless threads on this. "Summer Shipping" began months ago and continues, you just don't see the shipping price change from $5 to $7 now; it's built-in, so to speak. WD and WCC have their lively hood invested and at stake here, and are doing the heavy lifting required to insure safe and proper shipping, barring some stupid local delivery pu-wercs.

I hate to keep going on about this but....
For some reason someone decided it is OK to use regular shipping when temperatures are in the 90s and the wine will spend 6 days in transit, no need for any special "summer shipping".

stratma wrote:I hate to keep going on about this but....
For some reason someone decided it is OK to use regular shipping when temperatures are in the 90s and the wine will spend 6 days in transit, no need for any special "summer shipping".

When the wine arrives, check it out, and if there are any problems, please contact service@woot.com then. It's a bit hard to look into the crystal ball to figure out what condition it will be in before it actually gets there!

Sorry we can't be more help until it arrives, though.

stratma wrote:I hate to keep going on about this but....
For some reason someone decided it is OK to use regular shipping when temperatures are in the 90s and the wine will spend 6 days in transit, no need for any special "summer shipping".

You don't seem to be allowing for the case where quite simply, a mistake may have been made. As others have pointed out, WD's livelihood is this business and having to re-ship wines due to cooking in transit is a very good way for him to lose the trust of both us and the wineries. Even if you don't necessarily trust him (which you should - he's a great guy) you should trust that his incentives are perfectly in line with yours.

stratma wrote:check out this link to see the PO# field: http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?language=english&cntry_code=us&tracknumbers=747796862939728

I agree the extra time for delivery to NY could be bad. It is odd though that Columbus OH is about halfway between CHI and NYC, but FedEx can deliver to CHI next day but not to NY.

Thanks. I see the 'Oh' now...

Winedavid39 wrote:Good Morning,

research on this shows that a mistake was made at the warehouse sorting phase. this package was intended for the cold truck being linehauled to the IL hub.

apologies here. suggested next step, go ahead and recieve in the package. please contact me directly when it arrives.

** this in no way suggests we are employing new tactics on summer shipping **

again, apologies for this unfortuante error.

Thanks for looking into this and reporting what you found. I'll let you know about the wine when it arrives.

stratma wrote:It is odd though that Columbus OH is about halfway between CHI and NYC

Columbus to Chicago: 357 miles
Columbus to NYC: 535 miles
Not quite halfway, but either of those should be doable in a single day.

cortot20 wrote:It's the magic of woot shipping. Similar to choose your own adventure but they choose your adventure instead.

Nice! Nothing like choose your own adventure to teach the causality of decision making in life.

noslensj wrote:so, here we are, close to 24 hours after the package was delivered, and woot still wants to assure me that shipment is pending.

inkycatz wrote:Once the time streams converge I'm sure it'll be fixed up.

wine.woot still says my Gård is still pending shipment, so I guess that what I received was some kind of new virtual wine. Must be part of Winedavid's business plan I assume; new modes of delivery facilitated by this interweb thingy.

Anyway, he seems to have it nailed. The virtual wine I received is indistinguishable from the real stuff that is still sitting in the wine.woot warehouse. Tastes the same and gives the same buzz as the real juice. It's amazing what these new 3-D printers can do, as I guess that must be part of the technology in play here.

I figure that once the bugs get worked out that is going to be the solution for summer shipping. Wine.woot will prepare a 3-D print file for the wine and transmit the file to local distribution facilities to be set up in major cities across the country. There the bottles will be created using the printer and delivered using local delivery services.

Pretty elegant and ingenious, I must say.

Since people generally prefer complaining rather than saying when a job is well done, I figure I should go with the latter. My Used Auto Parts dessert wine was shipped on Tuesday. I got the email at 10:35am on Tuesday to notify me. The FedEx tracking says that the number hit the FedEx system at 11:11am that same day.

Looks like problems are being fixed!

Order for Wellington Library Syrah Mini Vertical 2-Pack is shown in my account as pending shipping. I received it yesterday. WD-hope your staff is still working on the notification issues.

noslensj wrote:wine.woot still says my Gård is still pending shipment, so I guess that what I received was some kind of new virtual wine. Must be part of Winedavid's business plan I assume; new modes of delivery facilitated by this interweb thingy.

Anyway, he seems to have it nailed. The virtual wine I received is indistinguishable from the real stuff that is still sitting in the wine.woot warehouse. Tastes the same and gives the same buzz as the real juice. It's amazing what these new 3-D printers can do, as I guess that must be part of the technology in play here.

I figure that once the bugs get worked out that is going to be the solution for summer shipping. Wine.woot will prepare a 3-D print file for the wine and transmit the file to local distribution facilities to be set up in major cities across the country. There the bottles will be created using the printer and delivered using local delivery services.

Pretty elegant and ingenious, I must say.

One order of mine didn't show shipped until almost 4 weeks after I received it. I emailed woot to find out why I was getting a notification so late. I was told they don't set an offer as shipped until every order has shipped and they had run out of it so even though I had received it, other people had been waiting.

Notifications and tracking #s are no "released" until they are all released.

This procedure may explain a lot of the questions out there about receiving notifications. I see this procedure as a major logistical fault and you'd think that a monster company like Amazon would have developers that can write code to send notifications on a per shipment basis.

Btw, the fedex tracking info also changed, showing the shipping received info as the date the notification went out, so it looks like it was delivered long before they ever had the package in their system. Gotta love virtual'ality ;-)

ddeuddeg wrote:Columbus to Chicago: 357 miles
Columbus to NYC: 535 miles
Not quite halfway, but either of those should be doable in a single day.

You are correct. 545 miles from Grove City, OH to NYC, an 11hr drive if going door to door and no stopping. Took 45 hrs from delivery to fedex to delivery at my building. A lot of time to bake, but hopefully no ill effect.

As mentioned earlier, I had an order of 4 bottles of Wellington shipped via Fedex Ground from CA to IL, (shipment method not by my choice). All four bottles were at a temperature of 87F when received. (There is also a high probability the shipment was exposed to 90+ temperatures for 24 to 30 hours during transit with the temperatures reaching 97F peak at least twice while in transit). The corks of all 4 bottles were pushed out by about 1/4", with one bottle showing obvious signs of leakage.

I went ahead and tried one bottle, although it was not on the menu for that evening. It did not smell nor taste like wine. It was more like alcohol laced colored water.

There are 3 bottles left from that shipment/order. My original plan was not to drink these right away but to wait 6 to 24 months to consume these bottles of wine. But since the quality of the first bottle was horrible what should a person do about the other ones?

Do you go ahead and open them sooner than planned just to check the quality?

Or do you wait and open them many months from now, according to your original plans, and take your chances as to whether the wine is any good or not?

I am especially sensitive to the shipping issue recently because 3 bottles (so far out of 10) of the 2004 Astrale e Terra Estate Syrah were cooked.

I too have received my Wellington (Last week, still showing "shipping pending"), and I live just outside of Chicago, but it does not appear to be cooked (no popped cork...).

I am also waiting for some Iron horse Bubbly that is showing as shipped in the "stuff you bought," but when I click on the tracking number link, the fed ex site says that there is no information for he shipment. (This was the same case for the Zeppelin Central Coast from the woot off. Tracking information did not show up until the package was already received.) Because I am often away from home and I work in a school (which frowns on alcohol deliveries...), I like to arrange for a hold on my package. With tracking numbers that don't work, I am unable to have the package held at a fed ex office location until after the package has been delivered and I have the door tag in hand. I only read the last page and a half of this thread, so I apologize if this has already been answered, but is there any information on a possible fix to this (relatively minor) issue?

Thanks for the information.

Winedavid39 wrote:Good Morning,

Thanks for your patience on this. As I mentioned earlier, a small group of Wellington Wines were in a “mis-sort” at the warehouse level and missed the cold truck headed to the Midwest hub and instead went regular ground.

If you opened a bottle and found it unsatisfactory, for sure request a replacement. I would NOT pour the remaining bottles down the drain. Wine is heartier than one might think and may taste fine after it settles down a bit- maybe not. By and large, if you believe your wine has been exposed (as these Wellington’s were) and you see external identifiers such as protruding corks and/or leakage, please contact service@woot.com for a replacement. We’ll get more wine out to you.

I’ll be around this thread a bit today to field any more service questions or inquiries. For expedience, when commenting it’d be great if you include the state where your package is being delivered. I can speak more authoritatively on the package’s logistical path.

Thanks,

mbmiche wrote:I too have received my Wellington (Last week, still showing "shipping pending"), and I live just outside of Chicago, but it does not appear to be cooked (no popped cork...).

I am also waiting for some Iron horse Bubbly that is showing as shipped in the "stuff you bought," but when I click on the tracking number link, the fed ex site says that there is no information for he shipment. (This was the same case for the Zeppelin Central Coast from the woot off. Tracking information did not show up until the package was already received.) Because I am often away from home and I work in a school (which frowns on alcohol deliveries...), I like to arrange for a hold on my package. With tracking numbers that don't work, I am unable to have the package held at a fed ex office location until after the package has been delivered and I have the door tag in hand. I only read the last page and a half of this thread, so I apologize if this has already been answered, but is there any information on a possible fix to this (relatively minor) issue?

Thanks for the information.

If you've got the tracking number and it's not showing up in the FedEx system, there's not a whole lot anybody on either the woot or WCC end can do about it, unfortunately. It seems that generally the FedEx system can take a day or two to register the package after the information has been generated and sent to them.