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Large, heavy item shipping to stores is done via various freight services, many outside the normal fedex-ups-etc carriers.
For normal packages, FedEx and UPS have it down to a science. Tracking, confirmation, everything is precision.
Large freight carriers, in my recent experience, are behind a bit on the integration of these modern services. Things take longer. Things sit on docks and don't move. Things that are ordered from an 'in-stock' warehouse turn out to be nowhere near that warehouse nor in the country at all.
I just had the unfortunate experience of spending an entire day trying to track down 5 pallets worth of special goods of incredibly high value that were mis-shipped to a place near me instead of where they needed to go, which was 3000 miles away in Canada. There was no tracking, no electronic anything- all the truck manifests were just hand-written forms which were not in an sort of electronic form or communicable quickly at all. A freight service was contracted by another one to get it to me, and the hand-off between the two was signed for on a slip by some person with no contact information whatsoever.
Stuff showed up eventually, but there seriously was no difference in the way it was handled versus the way it would have been handled if this was the 1850's. other than horse-and-wagon was an 18 wheeler. You would think, with things like simple email and barcodes being cheap, that they would be used to track shipments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially. But... nope...
Sorry that was a rant. But applicable.
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