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FedEx, like all major shipping services and most airlines, operates on a hub and spoke model. What's that, you ask? Well, it looks like this from a bird's eye view. If you consider each black square a "hub", you can map out how this works. How do you get something from a green square on the left to a purple square on the right? Well, if it were just one package, you'd just drive or fly it straight there. However, that's not cost effective when you're talking about millions of packages per day! Instead, you take packages from the green square on the left, send them to the black square closest (, then put them on regularly scheduled large freight flight (or truck) that follows those black lines. The package then goes from black square to black square to black square until it's close to the hub closest its destination, then reverses the process to get to the destination. Here's a more specific view for you: That's a hub and spoke system. Let's say you live in a suburb of Houston, Texas - say, Pearland, Texas - and you want to ship to town near New Orleans, Louisiana (I chose those two since I've made the drive before, and it's about eight hours at the speed limit). First, your package is taken by the shipper to a local shipping store - your Point of Origin. That day or the next, that package is delivered to the local FedEx routing center in Pearland, your local Spoke. It's placed in an area where it waits for a number of hours and is then placed on a truck that delivers from the to the nearest spoke (Pearland) to the nearest hub (FedEx shipping depot) in Houston. From there, it's driven to the airport, where it's loaded on a FedEx cargo plane and flown to the next hub. In this example, there's not a hub in-between Houston and New Orleans, but if there was, the flight would stop there, drop off packages for that area, pick up packages that were going the way the plane was going, and take back off. Now that the plane is landing in New Orleans, the reverse process happens. It's offloaded from the plane, taken to a shipping depot in that major city, sorted and sent out to the nearest spoke to its destination, then sorted at the spoke and driven out on a delivery route to eventually reach you. So that's the basic process any package goes through these days - it's the most efficient (and cost efficient) method of logistics available. Add into that series delays at any point like weather creating a flight delay, a truck breaking down, or whatnot. If you're shipping internationally, there's delays at each border as Customs officials have their own duties to attend to in regards to your package. If you consider that most continental deliveries actually occur within 3-4 days, it's actually pretty darn amazing! Can you imagine having to manage that system? What enormous complexity! Ajay Jarhad [ https://www.quora.com/profile/Ajay-Jarhad ] is right, too, that shipping companies pad delivery times. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around, after all. And don't forget that the person shipping the package to you may have processing time and delays on their end too! More on quora.com

In conclusion: Go out of your way not to have products ship with FedEx and UPS. Seriously not worth the Duties & Tax headache. More on reddit.com

FedEx Ground in Canada is a hit or miss but for the most part, they’re alright. Purolator is pretty good and UPS is alright too. I’ve had packages destroyed by them but also other carriers. I wouldn’t worry too much, just try to get the driver who picks up to scan as many packages as possible so that they’re in the FedEx system. This way in the event of a lost package, they can’t say they didn’t receive it and you can move forward with a claim. Although, it’ll be tough getting the driver to scan 100 packages at once.

Also, considering purchasing insurance if it’s high value or fragile, as long as the products are covered by their terms.

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