Ground shipping remains the people’s favorite in the U.S. It’s fairly economical, highly reliable, relatively faster, offers various shipping options, and covers more ground than any similar service. Singularly, the FedEx Ground shipping service is bestowed on business owners by FedEx. Solely constituting the major portion of FedEx shipments passing through every day. Every shipment requires a different approach altogether. It’ll be more fruitful to add a couple of special options while finalizing shipments. Luckily, FedEx Ground offers a range of facilities tailored to meet your business needs. It’d be unjust to shun them without considering the possible aid to your business. In this article, we will guide you through using FedEx Ground in the U.S. and Canada. To keep things interesting, we have listed the features and benefits that fall right after. So read along and find out more.
What is FedEx Ground service?
Founded in the year 1985, Roadway Package System was introduced as a leading small-package shipping company. Following the acquisition of the Caliber companies by FDX Corp. in 1998, it was later rebranded to FedEx Ground in January 2000.
- Since then, it has improved its transit times for most of its domestic shipping locations. Making its delivery much faster than UPS Ground.
- With recent investments in high-tech facilities, it has automated most of its workflow. Resulting in continual improvement in speed, efficiency, and reliability.
- FedEx Ground manages to deliver packages within 1–7 business days. The delivery timings differ based on the distance between you and your customer’s location.
- Each delivery is backed up by their money-back guarantee, clearly displaying their level of commitment.
FedEx Ground service details
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Delivery Timings |
FedEx Ground delivers within 1–5 business days within the contiguous U.S. It can take 3–7 business days to and from Alaska and Hawaii. The deliveries are attempted by the end of the day. |
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Working Days |
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Delivery Area |
The delivery is available to all 50 states in the United States of America. |
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Package Type |
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Delivery Exceptions and additional information | FedEx Ground cannot deliver to P.O. boxes. No hazardous materials to or from Alaska and Hawaii (see hazardous materials). Service for remote Alaskan locations and the Hawaiian islands of Lanai and Molokai is inbound only. FedEx Ground allows the package recipient to be invoiced directly for the inbound shipments. This way you can control the costs and avoid charges added by your suppliers. |
What is FedEx Home Delivery?
- FedEx Home Delivery is a sub-part of FedEx Ground that deals with residential deliveries. So shipments that have to be delivered to your customer’s home address fall under this category.
- Please note the shipping prices; in this case, they tend to be slightly higher than FedEx Ground. That’s because FedEx trucks and vans have to reach customers’ doorsteps for the final delivery.
- Many e-commerce shipping solutions allow store owners to define the final address as a residential address. In WooCommerce, for example, you can do that with the help of the WooCommerce FedEx Shipping plugin. We will discuss more on this later in the article.
Does FedEx Ground support Collect on Delivery?
Yes, it does. FedEx Ground designates the amount of money that a FedEx driver collects from the recipient when a package is delivered. However, FedEx Ground Collect On Delivery is not available with FedEx Home Delivery.
- If the FedEx Ground driver collects guaranteed funds, or a company and/or personal check, the payment is sent directly to the shipper via U.S. mail.
- If cash is collected by the next business day, FedEx Ground issues a check to the shipper in the amount of the cash collected. The FedEx-issued check is sent to the shipper using the U.S. Postal Service.
- The shipper must designate the type of payment to be collected by FedEx Ground.
Does FedEx Ground Support FedEx One Rate
No, it does not. Neither FedEx Ground nor FedEx Home Delivery supports FedEx One Rate. And only the standard rates are applicable. To show this, we selected the FedEx One Rate for a shipment weighing 1 Lb.
Going ahead with the sample shipment shown above, you’ll find the following services supporting FedEx One Rate. But sadly, FedEx Ground shipping service is not applicable in this case.
When should you use FedEx Ground?
- FedEx Ground can be used to ship all kinds of shipments. It doesn’t matter if you have a large or small item. But of course, that doesn’t mean you can ship freight shipments.
- You’re not allowed to ship hazardous materials to and from Alaska and Hawaii. This makes more sense as such materials require more attention, which usually leads to a bump in the shipping price. If you want to ship such items, you may make use of the other FedEx Express services that specialize in doing that.
- Coming back to the point, small business owners selling small to medium-sized items could use this service. FedEx Ground proves to be really cost-effective if you use your own packaging. You can also use the weight-based packing method, which eliminates unnecessary price calculation.
- The WooCommerce FedEx shipping plugin allows users to pack their items based on the package weight. You can know more about it here.
As you can see, FedEx Ground operates in a similar fashion when compared to FedEx Ground service in the U.S. You can read more on this on their official website.
Comparing shipping rates with UPS Ground and other FedEx services
FedEx Ground rates are significantly cheaper compared to other FedEx services. The prices are even cheaper than UPS Ground service in a few locations. To find out the exact difference, we should take an example and calculate the shipping prices for the same. Consider you need to ship an item weighing 3 Lbs from New York to Georgia. Let’s go to the official FedEx rate calculator and find out the rates.
As you can see, FedEx Ground is much cheaper when compared to FedEx Express Saver, or any other service for that matter. The price difference is more than $10, and the delivery time isn’t that bad. Now let’s compare the rates with UPS Ground for the same shipment under the same shipping scenario.
As you can see, the rates are slightly higher when you plan on shipping with UPS Ground.
