I think its pretty much of a crap shoot when it comes to delivery services; they aren't even consistent within fairly limited areas, like, say, a state; most are pretty good at getting things to their destination in one piece and they are pretty much even in service; I don't do much mail order purchasing, mainly medical stuff, but I haven't had many problems except the usual ones of delayed delivery, but those have been always due to conditions out of the control of the carriers; I did get one item that was slightly damaged, but the vendor was very quick to replace the item, so I really don't have much of a complaint; you might want to inquire of some of the persons who live around you and see if they have any experience with the vendors you mentioned; as said, the service can very from area to area, keeping in mind that, ultimately, the human element is always the wild card in any business transaction...
One other thing you might try: check online to see if there are any service reviews for you area for those companies; I once had something sent to me via the USPS and it seemed to take forever to get here; the tracing showed it was at a USPS distribution hub nearby and had been there for days; I Googled the hub and found links to postal customer complaints regarding severe problems with items passing through that hub; armed with that knowledge, I went to the USPS office here in Hollywood, which is also a hub fr my immediate area and asked to speak with a postal inspector; I told him about the long delay with my item and showed him the critical posts I had found regarding the larger regional hub with the problems; he was a little surprised at the extent of the complaints and told me he would make some calls about the matter; later that day, I checked again on the USPS tracking, and, lo and behold, my item had suddenly passed through the larger regional hub and was on its way...
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