While FedEx offers a whole range of delivery services for all different kinds of customers, one of their most popular delivery options as to be the FedEx Home Delivery service. Each and every year, hundreds of millions of packages are processed through the FedEx Home Delivery service. Fast, economical, and reliable, customers love the way that FedEx gets their packages to them without breaking their bank account – getting packages directly from online retailers (for example) to their doorsteps quick without costing a small fortune.
If you are interested in using FedEx Home Delivery for any of the things you like to purchase, or are thinking about sending packages via FedEx Home Delivery to get merchandise to your customers, this quick guide is going to be incredibly important. Below we cover the ins and outs of FedEx Home Delivery, highlight what makes it so special and so different, and really breakdown the advantages (as well as some of the drawbacks) of this service as it stacks up against other options.
Let’s get into it!
What is FedEx Home Delivery?
To put it simply, FedEx Home Delivery is very similar to FedEx Ground (something that we compare the service to just a moment) with a couple of sole exceptions – with the most important one being that Home Delivery packages are only available for 100% residential customers. Part of the FedEx Ground network (at least as far as the infrastructure behind the scenes at FedEx is concerned), the services are fast as well as affordable. Interestingly enough, however, Home Delivery services are usually (a little) more expensive than FedEx Ground – in large part because residential buildings are often spread further apart than commercial buildings and the delivery to these locations is a lot less efficient. Still, you won’t have to worry about breaking your bank account into tiny little pieces when you want to send or have things shipped via Home Delivery through FedEx. Things do take about a week to get from Point A to Point B with Home Delivery, but that’s because your packages are always going to be shipped via ground transportation – trains and trucks, mostly – without ever being loaded onto the fleet of FedEx air transport planes.
Are There Specialty FedEx Home Delivery Services?
There are a number of specialty Home Delivery services available from the folks at FedEx that you’ll want to be aware of. All of the services introduce interesting little “wrinkles” to the overall delivery process and have their own pricing structure that sits apart from the traditional and standard FedEx Home Delivery service as well. Below we comb through the most popular “specialty” options pertaining to Home Delivery that you are most likely to take you been, breaking down how they differ and when you might want to take advantage of those services in the first place.
Date Certain Home Delivery
Whereas traditional FedEx Home Delivery guarantees a delivery window of between one and five business days throughout the continental United States and a 3 to 7 business day delivery to and from Alaska or Hawaii, Date Certain Home Delivery is a little more unique. You’ll actually have the opportunity to determine the exact date that your home delivery arrives at its ultimate destination with this specialty service, so long as you pick a delivery day on a Monday through a Saturday. Holidays are excluded as well.
There is a bit of a catch with this service aside from those restrictions, too. You’ll only be able to choose specific dates that are not in front of the standard delivery window (1 to 5 business days in the continental United States, 3 to 7 business days to and from Alaska and Hawaii). It also has to be within 14 days of your package being shipped. If you need a little bit more certainty about when your package will arrive, and you don’t mind paying a premium to guarantee delivery on that day inside of the windows we highlighted above, Date Certain Home Delivery from FedEx the way to go.
Evening Home Delivery
Another specialty home delivery service from FedEx is Evening Home Delivery. This is a specialty service that guarantees delivery between 5 PM and 8 PM, Monday through Sunday, and is available in all 50 states across the country. The real advantage here is that you get to guarantee that FedEx will only attempt to deliver your home shipments when you yourself are going to be at home.
A lot of people that have FedEx packages arrived while they are at work only for them to go missing (or to be stolen off of their porch) know just how much of a nightmare standard home delivery can be. By choosing instead to have FedEx drivers only bring your packages to you between the hours of 5 PM and 8 PM (when you are most likely going to be home) you are able to eliminate a lot of that uncertainty and a lot of those issues. You’ll still get delivery from between 1 to 5 business days within the continental United States in between three and seven business days to and from Alaska and Hawaii, just the same as you would when you choose standard Home Delivery from FedEx. You’ll just be locked into a nighttime delivery window that helps protect your packages for folks that just aren’t going to be around during the day all that often.
Appointment Home Delivery
Finally, you also have an opportunity to take advantage of FedEx Appointment Home Delivery services. This specific specialty version of the standard home delivery option allows you to arrange a specific date as well as a specific time that your package is to be delivered. Think of this as a solution that basically combines Date Certain with Evening Home Delivery, though you’ll be able to pick any specific time between 9 AM and 8 PM (Monday through Sunday) to have your package brought to you.
If you want to be sure that your package arrives during your lunch hour on Monday the 25th of the month you’ll be able to do exactly that. If you want to be sure that your package arrives just as your significant other gets home from work every Wednesday you’ll be able to do that, too! This is a little bit more expensive of a delivery service than some of the other options we have covered. But there’s no other home delivery choice that gives you quite as much control. You want that kind of control over your package deliveries it’s one of the best premium options of any shipping company on the market today!
What Days Are FedEx Home Delivery Services Available?
One of the coolest things about FedEx, and Home Delivery Services in particular, is that you can take advantage of them (pretty much) every day of the year. FedEx makes it easy to ship packages and to receive packages Monday through Friday, with (as highlighted earlier) standard delivery schedule between 7 AM and 8 PM at night for most packages. FedEx does take off some federal holidays (Christmas in particular, for example), but they have a fantastic delivery schedule that basically guarantees your package will be moving through their logistical system 24/7, 365 to get it to your doorstep as quickly as they can. That’s a big piece of the puzzle behind why so many people love to use FedEx and why they have been able to dominate the domestic and international shipping industry for American customers almost since day one.
What’s the Difference Between FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground?
We alluded to this a little bit earlier, but it’s important to really reinforce the major differences between FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground. Traditionally FedEx Ground has been use for consumer and commercial shipping purposes, but it definitely has more of a business specific kind of bent to it. FedEx likes to ship via Ground when they are serving customers that have to handle higher volumes as well as heavier items, the kinds of shipping needs that businesses are usually taking advantage of.
Ground shipping is usually a little bit less expensive compared to Home Delivery because of the economies of scale, too. With residential customers more spread out than commercial customers, and because they usually have smaller and lighter packages requiring the same resources and manpower to be delivered, Home Delivery is often going to be a bit more expensive. A residential surcharge of $3.80 per package will be assessed on every single order processed as Home Delivery. Where you might have paid $10 flat for a FedEx Ground package to be delivered that same package would cost you $13.80 to be shipped via FedEx Home Delivery.
That’s definitely something to think about. These two delivery platforms use the same infrastructure and the same logistical services, but the “end result” for customers of each is usually quite a bit different – as is the price tag.
Do I Have to Be at Home to Accept FedEx Home Delivery Packages?
You don’t necessarily have to be at home to accept your FedEx Home Delivery package, though both the Evening Home and Appointment Home specialty services of this delivery set up encourage that kind of interaction. If you do want to make sure that your packages are only ever going to arrive when you are there to receive them it’s not a bad idea to pay a little extra and take advantage of either Evening Home or Appointment Home Delivery from FedEx.
That gives you a bit more control over when these packages are going to hit your doorstep and a better opportunity to plan your day around being there to receive the packages, too. Of course, you can also take advantage of Direct Signature Required services as part of any of the FedEx Home Delivery solutions. You can even request that Adult Signature Required options are enabled, too, meaning that your packages will only be released to adults that can prove that they are at least 21 years of age by providing a government issued photo ID. All of those options come with every Home Delivery service from FedEx.
Does FedEx Home Delivery Include Free Tracking Info?
Every FedEx Home Delivery service (including the premium options we mentioned earlier) include 100% free tracking info with your purchase. Truth be told, every single order that you process with FedEx is going to include tracking information included at zero extra cost whatsoever. This is one of the big benefits of taking advantage of FedEx. You’ll get to watch as your package moves through the shipping process, getting updates in real time, and even having the opportunity to elect for live tracking notifications so that you know exactly where your package is at (almost) all times. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Enjoy More Control Over Your Deliveries with US Global Mail
Of course, you’re going to have to have an address for your FedEx packages to arrive at in the first place – and sometimes you won’t want (or be able to) use a PO Box or your residential street address. If that’s the case, it’s not a bad idea to look into the services available from US Global Mail.
One of the premier virtual mailbox services in the industry today, US Global Mail can accept all packages from FedEx on your behalf (including those sent via FedEx Home Delivery) – as well as traditional mail and packages sent via UPS, USPS, and DHL services. You’ll get virtual scanning of all of your mail for your record-keeping, live updates about when packages arrive (and snapshots of the envelopes and boxes), the ability to take advantage of mail forwarding services (including to international destinations), and so much more. Combine all of those benefits with the near legendary reputation that US Global Mail has in this industry and it’s not hard to see why so many people choose to take advantage of these solutions. Check out everything they have to offer today.
