TOLEDO, Ohio — As the holidays approach, many shipping services are encouraging customers to send their Christmas packages early. With early deadlines, WTOL 11 wanted to see how quickly and efficiently different services actually deliver your gifts.
We teamed up with our sister station First Coast News and sent two packages to their station in Jacksonville, Florida. One package was sent through USPS and the other one was through UPS.
First Coast News also sent equally weighted, sized and priced packages to WTOL 11 here in Toledo. All packages were sent on Friday, Nov. 5 through the respective shipping services.
Both packages were set to arrive at each station by either the following Monday or Tuesday, with the postal service packages set to arrive sooner.
There was only a three-dollar price difference between the two services. Each package made it to the corresponding location on time, both in Toledo and Florida.
Regardless, make sure if you're sending packages across the country, you're giving yourself plenty of time in case backups happen closer to the holidays. We'll experiment with this again to see if we get different results.
For USPS, first-class mail needs to be postmarked by Dec. 17 to arrive by Christmas. For UPS, three-day select shipping needs all packages shipped by Dec. 21 to arrive by Christmas. Lastly, for FedEx, the basic FedEx Home Delivery ground service deadline for before Christmas arrival is Dec. 15.
All three services offer expedited options at a higher cost should you be in a last-minute pinch.