I've ordered LEGO sets from Amazon before and they often show up trashed. For whatever reason UPS tends to kick them around the warehouse and truck before they deliver. Also I'm not sure what Amazon's packing plan is, but I got one small set once wrapped in a bag. It looked like the workers at the Amazon warehouse had stepped on the bag a few times before shipping. Luckily for me, the plan for that set was to open it and add the minifigs to the store so it wasn't a big issue.
LEGO Shop at Home tends to use FedEx for larger items and then smaller items arrive USPS or FedEx SmartPost (FedEx hauls the long distance and then delivers to the local USPS for final delivery). The LEGO distribution point is in Southhaven, MS which is just across the state line from Tennessee. More importantly it is right near Memphis, TN where FedEx's major hub is. So if you select the faster shipping methods, LEGO is right there to give it to FedEx so they can fly it to you. I would assume FedEx Ground is right there as well.
I'm not sure what the community's opinion is, but overall I've had good luck with LEGO Shop at Home in terms of damage. Everything is usually well packed and arrives via FedEx or USPS with minimal damage. It all changed yesterday when one of my May the 4th orders arrived.
I ordered #75142 - Homing Spider Droid as it was on sale for $23.99 vs. the regular $29.99. I'm not sure how well the picture captures it, but it looks like someone punched it before putting it into the box. The set was well packed with protection and there was little space for it to get jostled around during shipping. The other set in the box was not damaged either.
LEGO has a returns program and I could easily do that, but I wonder if it's worth it. I'm 99% sure that the contents in the set are not damaged. In the end I will either build the set or break it apart and sell the minifigs so does it really matter that the box is damaged?
I'm curious as to what your thoughts on damage to sets are? Does it matter if your set shows up with a damaged box as long as the contents are okay? Would it matter more if it was a larger, more expensive set? What do you think? Thanks for sharing!