As many of you are aware already GORUCK shut down their shipping warehouse that was located in Seattle. They decided that they were a gear company (not a logistics company) and are now using Newgistics to handle their warehousing and shipping.
I’m going to start off by saying that I understand why GORUCK made this decision. After each Charity Challenges event I’m stuck shipping between 700 – 1,000 packages with Kirk shipping the other half. That task alone takes us over twenty hours each. We kept saying our time would be better spent working on the Charity Challenges project instead of shipping packages. Each time we packed the patches we swore to each other it would be the last… that the next event we would outsource to a professional shipping company.
With that experience in my back pocket I can absolutely understand why GORUCK made the choice that they did. Shipping is not fun and you end up getting caught in details that are not furthering your brand or cause.
With that being said outsourcing your shipping can be scary because now someone else is in control of getting the gear to your customers. You have to be sure they hold the same values of you so that they won’t hurt your brand.
Old GORUCK Shipping Experience
My previous GORUCK shipping experiences were special. Not just because they were packed with extra love but because they showed up the day after shipping… always.
The old GORUCK warehouse was a short 20 mile drive south and if I ordered something between 2 PM PST there was a 75% chance it would be delivered the next day. Their shipments got to me quicker than my Amazon Prime deliveries… which says something.
While I was enjoying this sweet life of 1 day shipping luxury I know many people throughout our great country were experiencing something a bit different. Seattle is in the far northwest corner of our country and shipping to anywhere in the mid-west, east coast, south, south east… basically anywhere not named Oregon or California can take a long time. Centralizing their shipping operations does make a lot of sense in that regard and will probably help out more people than it hurts.
New GORUCK Shipping Experience
On 10/5/2016 at 2:36 PM PST I placed an order for a new GORUCK wind breaker, a MIL Kit Bag, and a 32L Kit Bag. The goal is to finally get a post together comparing the three different sizes of GORUCK kit bags.
At 6:52 PM on 10/5/2016 I received an email from Newgistics stating that my order had shipped. There wasn’t much info in the email except for an exceptionally long USPS tracking number.
A few days later an estimated delivery date appeared which ranged from six days to nine days after the date I ordered. It looks like the package is still in the hands of the Newgistics company and hasn’t been handed off to USPS just yet.
On October 8th Newgistics sent the tracking info to USPS and on the 12th the local USPS received the package. The USPS near me is always on their game and delivered it later that day.
Overall the shipping experience took one full week from when the order was placed to when it arrived. One week from placing the order to delivery really is not too terrible… especially considering the shipping was free. Have you had a recent experience with the GORUCK shipping partner? Leave a comment and let us know how it went.
I had a new GR1 sent to me via Newgistics from SCARS and I live on the west coast. SCARS sent my hip belt and sternum strap back from Montana as they opted to replace the GR1 after many years if use and love ( have to say on a side note great working with SCARS, A+) and the items from Montana came rather quick. The new GR1 took about 1 week. the tracking from Newgistics was not that great and actually told me my pack would get there even later, by using the tracking number from the actual USPS site more accurate. All in all reasonable shipping and came without any issues.
I’ll preface this comment by stating I live in Hawaii & I know things can take an extra couple of days to get here sometimes. Ordered a 10l bullet, my first Goruck bag. Was pretty excited as I had spent a while researching things, then waiting for them to be in stock. Placed order on Oct 4. Selected the Priority shipping option and paid the applicable cost for that option. Received a notification of shipment later that day. I also happened to order an Arcteryx 10l Aerios pack from Moosejaw the same day, also shipping via Priority Mail.
On October 8th I received a notice in my mailbox that the Moosejaw package had arrived & was ready to be picked up at my local Post Office. I picked the package up on 10/11 (limited hours for Sat pick-up, closed Sunday, Columbus Day on Monday).
At this point decided to check up on Goruck shipment via tracking #. From 10/4 till 10/8 the package had remained with Newgistics. On 10/8 it left a Newgistics facility and on 10/10 it was received by USPS. Departed USPS on the same day, headed to destination. Seemed fine till I noticed the delivery date was 10/22. Seemed a bit long for Priority Mail. Looked closer and item was shipped via Parcel Select. Which for packages coming to Hawaii means it’s on a slow boat ride here.
I purchase many items online because there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t available here on Kauai. It is very rare nowadays for things to get put on a boat, excepting large items like furniture or combustible things such as isobutane fuel, even when you manage to find free shipping here. In this case shipping wasn’t free, that’s fine, and I paid for a specific method in choosing Priority Mail. Usually Priority mail from the mainland take 5-7 days, even if shipped from the east coast. The Moosejaw package got here quicker then expected.
As of now the Goruck package appears as if it will take a total of 18 days to get here. Based on my experience this is an unnecessarily long time for a package of this size to travel here. Furthermore parcel select is not what I paid for & it is a substantially different service then the priority mail I wanted/paid for. I have contacted both Goruck and Newgistics and to this point haven’t received much more then being told to just wait.
Just wanted to follow up. My bullet 10l arrived on 10/22, which was the stated delivery date. So it took about 3 weeks, which is about right for stuff shipped parcel select from the mainland to Hawaii. Would have been okay if I hadn’t paid for Priority Mail which takes about 5 days from Eastern US to Hawaii. After a couple more exchanges with Goruck they have refunded the amount I paid for shipping.
So the situation ended with a suitable resolution, but I do think they could have just agreed to refund the shipping cost after I initially contacted them. It was clear that I had paid for Priority and item was sent via Parcel Select. That should have been enough to initiate a refund. Waiting to see when it arrived & exchanging multiple emails seemed unwarranted.
The bag itself seems to live up to expectations so far. I’ve only had a couple of days to use it, but initial quality seems great. I suspect a large part of my experience was due to the recent switch over to Newgistics & some kinks needing to be worked out.