I’m not one that likes to ship if it can be prevented, but in the case of me selling one of my animals to someone in a different state, which method would you say is better for the safety of the animal? I’m starting to lean more towards shipping to a hub. Not only for safety but for legality reasons as well. One being because they have to be who they say they are to pick the animal up since I’ve learned that FedEx doesn’t care who signs or doesn’t sign for a package if it’s delivered to a house. Which do you prefer and why? I’m wanting to know to better understand and acquire knowledge for future transactions. 
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I think hub is definitely safer. They spend less time on the truck and there’s no chance of the driver missing the person and being left at the door or having to spend more time on the truck. I always ask for my shipments to be delivered to the hub.
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The hub is best due to quicker time, less exposure to extreme temperatures, no missed or stolen packages, no wrong addresses, no animals getting in a package, etc.
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FedEx has been incredibly unreliable with 10:30am and 12:00 residential (to the house) delivery since COVID began. At the beginning of the mess I shipped two snakes to two separate addresses and they didn’t arrive until after dark. For that reason I ship to local hubs only now. Until/unless FedEx brings back their guaranteed early AM delivery to residential addresses, the risk just isn’t worth it.
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Shipping to a hub is always preferred, in my experience, because the hub receives the package and it stays there, and you just go pick it up. (If you’re like me, by then, you’ve watched the tracking updates and know exactly when it’s there and ready to pick up) As opposed to it being loaded on a delivery truck and having to wait within a window for it to arrive, and having to be there to accept it, this is much simpler, and safer for whatever is being shipped. I’ve always had my reservations about shipping living things, but it’s not as bad as it seems. And if you don’t have any shipping options in mind yet, try checking out ShipYourReptiles.com.
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There are other companies too, I personally use ReptilesExpress because they’re relatively local to me and tend to have the best pricing for my area. Reptiles2U is also a good service. Those are the three main reptile shipping companies.
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I’ve only had animals shipped to me during covid. I’ve had them shipped both to my house and to a hub.
To House: (all of them didn’t ask for signature and didn’t knock)
- Delayed
- Delayed and arrived cold, but she was fine
- Delayed during colder weather, he wasn’t cold at all
- No issues
To Hub:
- No issues
- No issues
- No Issues
- Sent to the wrong hub, but was seller’s fault and he wasn’t too far away. He was also cold despite it being good weather outside.
None of my experiences with shipping to my house were terrible, but they were all stressful. I’ll only ever do hub shipping from now on
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With my experience as a buyer, I will say that hub is better. It is easier to get there around my work schedule. My first purchase off of MM, the seller shipped to my apartment. I had to request the day off, and even then, Fedex never showed up to my apartment, and just filed that I wasn’t home to accept delivery even though I was sitting by my door patiently waiting for them. I called, and forced them to have the driver search for my apartment to drop off the package. My apartment isn’t the easiest to find as google maps will lead people to the managers office. My second purchase I just had the seller ship to the hub, which they even preferred and had no issues picking the package up after work.
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As a buyer, definitely to a hub! For all the reasons above. Plus the looks on people’s faces when they see that its a live animal. I had someone come to the truck and ask to see my A.chalcodes when I opened her up.
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Hub, hub, hub. If you want safety, hub is the way to go. No chance of being left outside in an uncontrolled environment. No risk of porch pirates, not being loaded into delivery trucks where it can be crushed potentially by poor planning. I have only bought so far, but have received 0 DoA by always using hub, i would never trust an animal to be delivered to my house, it is a chaotic environment, and the drivers are on a time limit to fi ish their route, that may not include gently placing the package.
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I usually always ship with SYR, but I’m starting to decide against shipping to houses at this point. One of my store policies is for the client to send me proof of the animals condition via a short video of them taking it out of the box or sending a picture within 2hrs of it being marked as delivered. The issue I incurred as of today was the guy allowing someone else to get the snake since he wasn’t home and eventually he informed me that she arrived and was fine, but he still didn’t send me a picture. This voids any chances of a refund, but it makes me paranoid because who’s to say they won’t file a claim later? Of course, things like that can happen even after they’ve been picked up from a HUB, but I feel safer knowing it was picked up there with more proof honestly.
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I always ship to our hub. I’ve never had a problem and no chance of missing the delivery.
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Until Covid I never had a problem shipping to a house. Now that there is an exponential increase in other shipping traffic, I only ship to hubs unless it’s a hardship (100 miles of travel one way for example). Even then in 2020 I didn’t have single snake that went through Memphis arrive next day. Plan for it, pack for it, and you’ll be fine.
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