USPS Tracking - what are your current experiences?

Doesn’t appear to be any consistency. Some packages sent Media Mail from a couple states away have taken weeks. However I recently received a package sent Media Mail from the opposite coast (came from California and I’m on the East coast) and it only took three days!

• Jul 3, 2020
  DELIVERED IN/AT MAILBOX
  CRANSTON, RI 02920

• Jul 3, 2020
  OUT FOR DELIVERY
  CRANSTON, RI 02920

• Jul 3, 2020
  ARRIVE USPS FACILITY
  CRANSTON, RI 02920

• Jul 2, 2020
  PROCESSED THROUGH USPS FACILITY
  PROVIDENCE, RI 02904

• Jul 2, 2020
  In Transit, Arriving On Time

• Jul 1, 2020
  Departed USPS Regional Origin Facility
  LOS ANGELES CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• Jul 1, 2020
  Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
  LOS ANGELES CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• Jun 30, 2020
  USPS in possession of item
  CULVER CITY, CA 90232

 

Here is the thing for me it seems like they're more efficient at delivering things from halfway across the world than they are from next door.

 

Boston to Vienna. Just got there. 2 months.

 

Some of my Media Mail packages have been taking some strange routes lately. A Discogs order from Arizona took a brief vacation in LA before heading to the east coast. Another Discogs order, from 60 miles away in Maryland, went hundreds and hundreds of miles out of its way to Greensboro, NC, before finally making it to DC.

 

Tomorrow will be the one month anniversary of the last shipping update on the package I'm still waiting for.

 

I think the whole process stresses you out and makes you insensitive to how long it takes or the inefficiency of it all. After a while one must resolve themselves to the fact that it may take a very long time and if anything comes sooner that's like a gift.

 

Look at this crap - I have a package coming to Southern California from Detroit, and it's taken TWO WEEKS just to go from Detroit to Pontiac, which is only one town over! At this rate, it should take about two years?

July 5, 2020, 6:09 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
PONTIAC MI DISTRIBUTION CENTER
June 21, 2020, 3:39 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
DETROIT MI DISTRIBUTION CENTER

 

Well I was expecting a large parcel tommorow. It started off in Florida went to Louisiana, then on to Texas, passed through Arizona. It Arrived in Tracy California like 50 miles from me this morning. Now I see it's in Lebo Kansas. The curious thing is it's being announced in locations in future. I saw it was in Tracy at 4 a.m. at 11 PM the night before. Now I see it's telling me it's in Lebo Kansas at 10 pm right now. I'm not so certain that they don't have my number confused with some other or something is wrong with in the computer system that's supposed to tell me where my package or where are packages are.

 

Question... if I have a package that shipped out TWO months ago, and there was some movement in the first month, but then zero movement in the second month, does that mean the package is lost?

 

There's no telling in this Covid climate, esp. if your package was sent Media Mail. My Priority packages are still arriving in 2-3 days.

 

More than likely yes, but that it has been noted that it was not delivered you still have options. You need to contact USPS and have them open a ticket to where it is. if you don't get satisfaction you need to call back an escalate that because your product is important. I wish you the best of luck my friend.

 

Here's a new one for me :
Same mailman ( if I were to believe the computer-generated tracking info. ) will deliver one of my records today by 1:45 pm.
The second record will be delivered by 6:00 pm.

 

There is a disconnect between system and human. I put a hold on my mail on Thursday for a month so I could go in and pick it up personally. Saturday I got mail delivered to me.

 

So I ordered some records from Woodsist back at the end of May. They did a fantastic and quick job of sending out my stuff and I was notified that it got shipped on June 3rd. The USPS tracking had been stuck on "in transit" since June 7th. This morning it finally updated and after nearly six full weeks, my package finally made it all the way from Long Island, New York to.... New Jersey.

July 14, 2020, 6:19 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Your item arrived at our JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER origin facility on July 14, 2020 at 6:19 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination.
June 7, 2020
In Transit to Next Facility
June 3, 2020, 5:02 pm
Departed Post Office
STONE RIDGE, NY 12484
June 3, 2020, 2:45 pm
USPS in possession of item
STONE RIDGE, NY 12484
June 3, 2020, 10:12 am
Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
STONE RIDGE, NY 12484

 

See my post above, I've been doing a lot of digging into reddit forums and stuff to try to learn more. I'm told things are just THAT bad right now, so it is likely stuck in the system somewhere. As I noted, my package too a full six weeks to get from Long Island, NY to New Jersey, so who knows how long it'll take to make it the rest of the way to Illinois.

 

Play the music but open a bottle first to celebrate cuz that's been a long journey and reward.

 

Well I heard there are distribution centers that become hellholes for packages. Florida, New Jersey, Chicago, Los Angeles, these are all places that can easily stick packages for weeks and then eventually let them go.

I've scaled back ordering stuff but I still have half a dozen packages floating out there. I've got to pick up half a dozen from the post office today but now that my local record store is open I'm going to go there for a while.

 

Oh, it's not made it to me yet. It still has to journey from New Jersey to Illinois. Considering it took 6 weeks to travel 66 miles from Long Island to New Jersey, I'm anticipating arrival at my doorstep sometime in mid January 2022 after the remaining 800 miles to go.

 

Oh Noooooooooooooooooo. I'm sorry. I hope you do get it soon.

 

It's all so random - it can take a package one month to go from one distribution center to the next one, just one town over, and then clear across the country in just a day or two. It all comes down to when they grab it, scan it and throw it on a truck.

 

For the most part for the amount of mail that is being moved and delivered they do a good job. We just need to hold their feet to the fire to get what we need or give them what they need to do their job better.

 

Just got a couple packages today. One from Wyoming in 2 days to California. Another from England to California in 3 weeks. It's crazy.

 

That's actually normal, and you're lucky!

For me, recently, it took 2 months to get a package from Detroit to CA, and I've been waiting for 3 MONTHS for a package from the Netherlands to CA, still no sign of movement after getting to the US.

 

People get on me for pushing to get my product within a month, but things should work normal and I understand the situation that's out there right now.

Things can be delivered in a timely way. It's entirely possible. Of course I understand when things are delayed but I still push to get things after a month as much as possible. I just ordered something from Spain and I'm giving it a month but who knows I might get in a couple weeks. I've got something from Australia in the past in 8 days. There's really no rhyme or reason to how things are routed and how things get to you timely or quickly or delayed.

 

Postal Service memos detail ‘difficult’ changes, including slower mail delivery

Postal Service memos detail ‘difficult’ changes, including slower mail delivery
by Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, Posted: July 14, 2020- 1:54 PM

The new head of the U.S. Postal Service established major operational changes Monday that could slow down mail delivery, warning employees the agency would not survive unless it made "difficult" changes to cut costs. But critics say such a philosophical sea change would sacrifice operational efficiency and cede its competitive edge to UPS, FedEx and other private sector rivals.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes, according to internal USPS documents obtained by The Washington Post and verified by the American Postal Workers Union and three people with knowledge of their contents, but who spoke anonymously to avoid retribution.

"If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day," according to a document titled, "New PMG's [Postmaster General's] expectations and plan." Traditionally, postal workers are trained not to leave letters behind and to make multiple delivery trips to ensure timely distribution of letters and parcels.

Postal Package Deliveries ‘Bogged Down’ With Delays, Backlogs

Postal Package Deliveries ‘Bogged Down’ With Delays, Backlogs
Heavy parcel volume during coronavirus lockdowns, staffing shortages are straining mail delivery networks

By
Updated June 1, 2020 5:50 pm ET

Surging e-commerce volumes during the coronavirus pandemic are straining the U.S. Postal Service’s parcel network as staffing shortages and backlogs in hard-hit areas slow deliveries.

The problems have delayed some packages for days and even weeks, shippers and consumers say, holding up orders at a time when many people are shopping more online to avoid infection with the virus.

The slow deliveries have complicated business for e-commerce sellers who rely on the Postal Service to ship packages at affordable rates, and tracking services have added to the frustrations, with some items appearing to get stuck at certain locations or vanishing altogether.

“There is a whole network that is bogged down.”

— Luke Marion, co-owner of online retailer MIgardener
“Updates on locations of almost all of our packages are either not available, they do not get scanned [or are] sent back without notification,” said Ivy Kami of Colorado Springs, Colo., who sells jewelry and gifts through an online store called Boutique Alosia LLC. “Long wait times and frustrated customers have not been fun for e-commerce sellers like myself.”

Business for Luke Marion, co-owner of MIgardener, an online garden center based in Port Huron, Mich., soared after the pandemic hit, but transit times for USPS shipments to his customers in some cases doubled or even tripled in recent weeks, he said. Tracking information showed that about 30% to 40% of packages he shipped to his customers in Michigan would go out of state first, which Mr. Marion attributed to problems at a postal distribution center in Detroit.

“There is a whole network that is bogged down,” he said, “and it’s not the [mail] carriers’ fault.”

Between April 19 and May 23, USPS delivered 89.5% of priority mail packages on time, compared with 87.4% between March 1 and April 18, the data provider said. For first-class packages, 92.8% were delivered on time between April 19 and May 23, compared with 92.9% in the earlier period.

UPS delivered 96.5% of business-to-consumer shipments on time between April 19 and May 23, according to ShipMatrix, while FedEx Ground delivered 86.9% of such packages on time during that period.

“The parcel volumes have gone up, we are probably working at a holiday volume rate, but we’re doing it with about a 74% staffing [level],” Dwight Burnside, a mail handler at a USPS processing and distribution center in Merrifield, Va., said in a union-organized press call this week.