[Joe Maccarrone]

Any experiences to report?

I ordered a dagger from Tod last month. Within just a few days of placing the order, Royal Mail tracking showed it arrived in San Francisco and handed off to USPS. From there it went to Chicago (an odd route to Washington state), where it has sat unmoving for 14 days. I'm starting to get discouraged...

[Chad Arnow]

I’ve seen a lot of usps delays recently, with both local and international shipments. In a few cases, I’ve put in inquiries/made calls on stuck packages and they mysteriously started moving again.

[Lloyd Winter]

Joe, I have almost the same situation.
An order from Tod went off the grid somewhere.
Fortunately this was all findings from Tod Cutler and not something custom.

Royal Mail tracking says it’s been in Los Angeles since July 12.
USPS says it’ was processed through Miami on July 12 and it hasn’t moved since then.

I filed a case with USPS and I haven’t heard from then since the initial “we got your message” email 2 weeks ago.
Another order from Tod placed 2 weeks later than the above arrived in 10 days.

I suggest you let Tod know so he can file an insurance claim.
He has already sent me a new shipment for my order and that apparently is in Chicago as of today.

[Aaron Hoard]

Shipping in the US has been random - some things come faster than I expect; others are taking way longer. Just completely unpredictable.

Shipping from Europe (and elsewhere) has been mostly super-slow. Had one item sent from Scotland take under a week. Another item from Norway took 35 days. An item from Croatia took three weeks (which was actually faster than I thought). A nice bottle of rum from the Netherlands took 3+ months...and then, when it got her, it had broken and spilled all over the inside of the box! There's a shipment from UK that's who-knows-where right now.

[Joe Fults]

How about hell yes even! Their quoted transit times seem to have become a complete joke in the last month or so. I have a Leeds brigandine that has been in transit since the 21st of last month. And it still in transit.

[Mark Millman]

Dear Joe M.,

There's a thread that discusses some reasons for recent shipping delays, which starts by talking about international shipments but spends a fair amount of time on the USPS.

More recently, the new Postmaster General has instituted cost-saving measures that appear to have a significant impact on delivery times, to the extent that he's been called to give testimony before Congress. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Chad's experience is not so mysterious: Postal workers now are allotted less time to handle the volume they're expected to process, so things get held up. Asking about them bumps them to the top of the backlogged pile. I don't know whether there's a way to improve the situation short of contacting your state's Congressional delegation and letting them know that you're concerned about the postal system's performance. Also, go easy on the USPS's line workers; these directives have come down from on high--as I say, they've been decreed by the recently-appointed Postmaster General--and the workers are no more happy about them than we are, and are overburdened to boot. A lot of them seem to be doing their best to skirt the new regulations (which include such points as eliminating overtime and instructing that items left unprocessed when shifts end be left as they are--it used to be that they'd be processed the same day regardless of when the shift ended) in order to reduce their impact.

As for packages taking unexpected routes, within the past six weeks I've had two different packages shipped from within my own state that were routed out of state before coming to me. Again, I can only guess why, but the possibilities seem to come down to:

1. routing efficiency (a truck was leaving for an out-of-state distribution center before one was scheduled to travel more directly toward me);

B. cost (there weren't enough items in that day's shipments coming to my area to make it worthwhile to send a whole truck straight to the distribution center nearest me);

iii. human error.

These were, however, both books, and Media Mail shipments are cheap, not fast, which undoubtedly influenced the routing.

I also had two shipments of scabbard chapes (not, regrettably, Tod's) sent from England, and each got to me a week after it was sent; but they were both small enough to be sent under the rules for letters, rather than having to go as parcels.

And then there's the package from Hong Kong that was sent on July 4, which is presumably still on its way. But Hong Kong Post doesn't offer tracking on shipments to the U.S. and doesn't co-operate with USPS tracking, so I have no way of following it and just have to wait until it shows up. That could, according to the delivery estimate, be as late as some time in early September.

In your case, I suppose it's possible that your shipment got tagged for Customs attention, and Chicago had the most efficient (by whatever criterion) Customs warehouse--which would also explain the two-week delay. The same thing might have happened to Lloyd. But I'm afraid this has to remain speculation.

Best,

Mark

P.S.: Apologies to all for any confusion about whom I meant to address in this posting. I hope at least that the information proves helpful to everybody. --M.

[Joe Fults]

I figured it was the new guy trying to kill it off...because yeah...that makes sense. I'm not going to go yelling at employees who have nothing but the misfortune to work there. But I've never had things disappear into a black hole like this before with USPS (once with UPS though...so it happens). I'm asking the shipper to check his end to see if there is anything to know and do other than wait.

[Mark Millman]

Dear Joe F.,

To be sure, I've sometimes wondered whether "In Transit" doesn't really mean, "sitting on a shelf waiting until we can deal with it", but then I've had items marked "In Transit" for a week that went from point of origin to "In Transit" (for that week) to my doorstep with no other information appearing in the tracking updates.

Best,

Mark

[Dan Howard]

Tracking info doesn't mean much at the moment because workers aren't scanning every parcel. They just assume that it will be scanned by someone else down the line.

[Ian Hutchison]

[Joe Maccarrone]

Thanks for the info, guys -- if it doesn't start moving again soon I'll make some calls.. I was thinking Chicago might be customs, but in 25 years of collecting I can't recall anything stalling in customs so long.

[Arne G.]

I've had a package delayed for a few days, bouncing around the LA area from one distribution facility to the next. Tempted to just call and tell them to leave it whatever facility its at and I'll just drive and pick it up, rather than wait for them to unscrew their heads out of their netherparts...

[Mark Millman]

Dear Dan,

[Edward Lee]

USPS is just a mess these days, in the future I would try to see if DHL is possible.

[Joe Fults]

Unfortunately, from some parts of the world, its national postal systems or pay somebody to fly there and pick it up.

[J.D. Crawford]

I've had several cross the US-Canadian border each way since COVID and did not notice any customs delays compared to normal; if anything better than normal. The big delays have been items that just sit in one spot for a while. The worst (detailed in that other thread mentioned above) was an item that sat still in Texas for a month, and then disappeared another month in Chicago. But they all had delays of some sort. There have been delays within Canada as well, but nothing so extreme.

[Aaron Hoard]

[Jeremy V. Krause]

Well I have an A&A sword which is in some kind of limbo. Apparently it made it to my local distribution center but has not arrived at my local USPS office. It has been listed as "in transit- arriving late" for 2 weeks. I have a case with them and am crossing my fingers.

[Joe Maccarrone]

[Ian Hutchison]

I currently have two packages 'in transit' at the distribution center in Elk Grove, IL since the beginning of August. It's quite ridiculous.