Reptiles Express, snake shipping suspended

UPS clearly said to me that SYR has no waiver and SYR itself is unable to provide one. While I appreciate the efforts to help your customers, Brendan, SYR is not the way to go. Robin is an antagonistic, lying snob as is evident on several of his conversations about SYR on this forum. SYR will never see a dime from me and neither will UPS if they do not work things out with RE. I have standards and they are far above the likes of Robin and SYR.

Originally Posted by RidgeTop Reptiles

Actually they are making money with SYR and RE... because only a few select have been grandfathered in to ship snakes with UPS.... so by allowing SYR and RE to ship snakes.. they are improving their bottom line.

What I dont get is why they are so against it. They are alienating themselves from a whole industry and giving it all to FedEx. From a business standpoint... that has got to be the dumbest move ever.

I work for UPS in operations management at the main air hub (WorldPort) here in Louisville. I'd guess that at least 80 to 90 percent of the overnight reptile shipments tendered to UPS come through here each night along with over a million other packages.

I'm not going to pretend to know what the holdup is with granting RE or SYR the waivers to ship snakes but I wouldn't be in the least surprised to find out that it's simply because the company doesn't WANT to handle them. I know that most of the people here want nothing to do with them.

I've been with UPS for fourteen years and in that time I personally have witnessed over a dozen incidents involving snakes escaping from their boxes. Most of the time it's due to improper packaging, but that's neither here nor there. On more than one of those occasions an injury to an employee has resulted, either from a bite or from them being startled and then hurt in their effort to get away from the snake. I myself was bitten while trying to recapture several rough green snakes that had escaped their enclosure and the company wanted to send me to the emergency care center.

Injuries in the workplace are very expensive in terms of both medical treatment and in the time it takes to process all the paperwork required, not to mention the loss of productivity of the employee and the strike against the company as an OSHA recordable injury.

Boxes are loaded into shipping containers which are then loaded onto the aircraft. Once the plane gets to our hub or another gateway's hub the containers are removed and are put up in an unload area in the hub. A few weeks back a container was spotted up on an unload lane here and when the employee opened the door he was greeted by an 11 foot Sulawesi retic that had escaped. Imagine the disruption that caused. Time is money and in the overnight shipping business minutes lost mean a lot of money. When you have an entire area closed down because employees are afraid to go near an escaped snake the result is like ripples in a pond: the processing of the packages is delayed, which means that the reloading of the outbound aircraft is delayed, which causes potential service failures and increased airport fees when the planes do not leave on time.

If a lizard gets loose everybody gathers around and says, "Oh look, isn't he cute?" and then goes back to work. If a tarantula or scorpion escapes someone steps on it and work resumes without too much fanfare. If a snake meanders out of its box people run screaming in terror.

I would guess that part of the problem might be that SYR and RE are not the actual "known shippers" of the snakes, i.e., a responsible entity. Instead, any Tom, Dick or dumbass off the street can ship through them with no regard to common sense or proper packaging. Just read some of the horror stories here on the BOI.

Again, these are just some random thoughts I came up with while reading this thread, the truth may be a world apart from this.

And what happened to that beautiful 11 foot Sulawesi retic a few weeks ago? He's now dead, thanks to an uncaring owner who shipped it in a bare box with no internal containment. Hope he's proud of himself.

Apologies for the back to back posts but I just came across this in another thread, posted by a representative of ReptilesExpress.

Originally Posted by coldbloodedcages

In our meeting with ups they told us about a day a snake got loose in a hub. They had to shut down the hub for a few hours while they had animal control hunt down the snake. They had 450 employees (on the clock) sitting in the parking lot for 3 hours. They estimated it cost them $500,000 to have the hub on hold for that time.

One snake, in one hub cost the company a half million dollars. And that's a small hub; here in Louisville we have 7,000 or more employees on the clock each night. I doubt a scenario would come up that we would have to evacuate the entire air park over a snake but if it did then you'd also have grounded 120 airplanes and stranded a million plus packages while hunting down the snake.

UPS, as a company, seldom looks at the 'right now' as in "We can make a few thousand dollars more per week right now if we allow snakes to be shipped." UPS is a slow moving dinosaur compared to FedEx's fast and nimble approach. They tend to look at things with the "What will this change cause to happen five years from now? Ten years?"

From a business standpoint.... UPS is being a fool for not trying to tap into a multi million dollar market. Maybe if they would put in a certification proceedure like FedEx has... you wouldnt have loose critters because we would be shipping on our own account number and we would be held accountable.

I completely agree Kevin... If they would do the Certification like Fed Ex.. I'm sure there would be less "Accidents" and it would make those that want to ship more responsible as well!

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Actually, there ARE some big name companies in this business shipping snakes with the blessing of UPS. UPS is accepting their business, in my opinion, solely based on the volume of business ($$) they get from them, and absolutely nothing else. It doesn't have a damned thing to do with "screening" at all, except in the case of $$ changing hands.

It's blatant discrimination against smaller companies, in my opinion, and provides an unfair competitive advantage to those larger sellers at the expense of smaller scale sellers. Quite frankly, I believe that UPS just needs to have a sizeable class action suit slapped across their face for their practices in this regard.

Originally Posted by RustyNuts

So you're wanting to prove that UPS discriminates against smaller sellers by not letting them ship their products? There are PLENTY of small time shippers that do business with UPS. They just don't try to ship snakes.

This is the point that Rich is trying to make. UPS's official policy is no snakes but if you move enough volume we will approve you to use our services. UPS doesn't just look the other way to them shipping snakes against their official policy they endorse it. A small time breeder has no chance of getting endorsement with UPS because they do not provide enough money for UPS to give it. Like it or not from a legal stand point if a group of small reptile breeders formed a class action lawsuit they would stand a good chance of winning.

Originally Posted by RustyNuts

I just felt like I had a bit of inside insight that no one else has and with it it's easy for me to see why UPS doesn't want to deal with snakes. Maybe my presentation was wrong, I don't know.

I for one have enjoyed this insight. It puts a different light on UPS's apprehension to accept snakes. I have seen UPS's Louisville hub and I can't imagine having to shut it down for a minute during peak overnight hours.

Just got an email from syr.com

"All Pro Shipping: A note to our valued customers

To our valued customers,

The UPS shipping tool for ShipYourReptiles, ShipYourAquatics, ShipYourBicycles and ShipYourRC is currently not working, and we cannot book shipments on our sites.

We are working as fast as we can with UPS to reinstate shipping services, and we will keep you updated.

You can still order shipping supplies from ShipYourReptiles and ShipYourAquatics.

If you need to send a package soon, we suggest using your local UPS or FedEx location.

A note for live shipments: If you use our shipping materials and follow our shipping standards, your package should arrive safely.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your support. Expect to hear from us soon.

-- Robyn@AllProShipping.com"


Why do I still feel like that aint the whole truth?

They state they are having problems with the site and then say they are trying to "reinstate services"

This thread is about ReptilesEXPRESS, not SYR.

It should be noted though, UPS does not accept snake shipments and you must be certified to ship any reptile via FedEx. I foresee SYR's email causing some issues as it doesn't explain what can and can not be shipped and how to go about it.

Reference this thread: SHIPPING: What you need to know!

Originally Posted by TripleMoonsExotic

UPS clearly said to me that SYR has no waiver and SYR itself is unable to provide one. While I appreciate the efforts to help your customers, Brendan, SYR is not the way to go. Robin is an antagonistic, lying snob as is evident on several of his conversations about SYR on this forum. SYR will never see a dime from me and neither will UPS if they do not work things out with RE. I have standards and they are far above the likes of Robin and SYR.

It appeared to me that syr seemed to be a topic in the thread so i thought it to be relevant.

I'm assuming no new is bad news with RE?