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Reptiles Express, snake shipping suspended

I wanted to explain the current situation with RE and UPS. We have a few people in corporate UPS that have been battling for RE and the reptile industry. There was only 2 more issues we have been working with UPS to find a permanent solution to: Snake Shipping and 3rd party billing (reselling labels). Early this week we made a huge step forward and got waiver free snake shipping approved with UPS through RE. Today we received some very bad news from UPS. The folks in UPS that have been working very hard to get these issues approved lost a very important battle today. We have been told that UPS has sent out a cease and desist order to SYR and pulled there accounts. They told RE today that they can not keep the lawyers from sending the same letter to us. We have been told are accounts are still active and we will need to wait for some of the fires to be put out before they will allow RE as a reseller of shipping labels to the reptile industry. We have 6 months of emails and phone calls assuring RE that our website and business plan was approved before we officially launched our site and most of the problems we have had are from outside pressure being applied to UPS. We will continue to work with UPS to work out this unfortunately series of events and will do everything we can to offer reasonable overnight reptile shipping in the future. We have removed the label option from our website until further notice. We wanted to apologize to all of our members and promise we will do everything possible to work this out with UPS. I placed a call to Chad at SYR today to see if we can work together with UPS to resolve these issues. I have not received a call back. I think at this point we just need to work with UPS together and stop the heat that is being applied at the corporate office. Thanks for the support and please post this in the other forums. We can't hit them all.

Brendan Tighe - Partner
ReptilesEXPRESS.com
 
This sucks, cannot believe UPS would be so willing to lose money to fedex. I am FedEx certified but hate fed ex with a passion and would so much prefer UPS, Fedex does not allow shipments to a residence and my rep informed me that if i try to do so at any time my package can be stopped and even destroyed. So back to be limited who you can sell to :( Hope this matter gets cleared up.
 
sorry did not mean destroyed as I'm sure they would not just throw my package away but sent back or even held for days on end before i would get it back. But is becoming rough to mail snakes with there currently only being 1 option :(
 
This really bites! I can only assume that there was never any formal contract/business agreement between RE and UPS. Unfortunately, 6 months of emails and phone calls dont mean anything to the key decision makers at UPS. Its all about their bottom line and they know there arent a lot of choices out there for us reptile enthusiasts. Why lose $ to SYR and RE?
 
CarolinaClassicDragons said:
This really bites! I can only assume that there was never any formal contract/business agreement between RE and UPS. Unfortunately, 6 months of emails and phone calls dont mean anything to the key decision makers at UPS. Its all about their bottom line and they know there arent a lot of choices out there for us reptile enthusiasts. Why lose $ to SYR and RE?
Click to expand...


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 have to agree Kevin.. I think it's because SYR was starting problems with the waiver and whatnot after they lost theirs and RE showed up. They started hassling people at UPS from what I heard and it just got WAY out of hand! I truly hope UPS comes to their senses and realizes how important this is to their business. Time to start boycotting UPS altogether and make them see what they are losing! I will not complain about RE's sevice because they are keeping us informed every step of the way! It sucks for them as well I'm sure!
 
Im already doing that. As long as UPS doesn't allow ME to get my own account and waiver.. .Im not giving them my money thru a 3rd party. I would love to see them open it up to the general public.... and I'd get an account as a back up... but FedEx will always be my primary.
 
Maybe there still is some hope.....

I copied this from Kingsnake.com. It is a reply from Robyn to our post about our current status with UPS.

"Our UPS accounts are live and working. The problem is communication with the UPS tool through the website, which generates quotes and labels.

There was also no call placed to either Chad or myself from ReptilesExpress.

Maybe they should worry about their own issues and stop speculating and deflecting to us?

I hope to have the site 100% next week, working on it now...
-----
[email protected]

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles"

I hope this is a true statement and UPS is just telling RE what we want to hear.

Brendan


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This is my response to the post.....

Robyn,

I will not get into a on going dispute over this. I did place a call to SYR and did leave a message on Chads voicemail extending a olive branch in the hopes we could both (SYR and RE) work together with UPS to solve these problems. If you did not want to work together a simple no would have been sufficient. I am glad to hear, according to you, that SYR did not receive a cease and desist letter from UPS and all of your accounts are still active. You say that you are doing "Technical Improvements" and you are working on your site, and are only having issues with the "Communication with the UPS Tools and your website" Then let me ask you....is there any reason you could not help out all of our (SYR and RE's) customers? We (RE) can not generate labels currently thru UPS and this has left many of our customers stranded with only having the option of using Delta or holding shipments until they become FedEx certified (everyone knows how long that can take). We have had a few "technical" issues in the beginning of RE within our own site, however we were still able to provide our members with labels directly from our UPS account and bypass our site without issue. If you truly can still generate labels with UPS then I assume you can also do this for your customers as well as some of ours??
I will post your comments and this reply in some of the other forums.

Brendan
 
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.
 
RidgeTop Reptiles said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

coldbloodedcages said:
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.
Click to expand...

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!
 
WebSlave said:
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.
Click to expand...

RustyNuts said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

RustyNuts said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

-- [email protected]"


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!
 
TripleMoonsExotic said:
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.
Click to expand...


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