How are you all handling USPS 2+ weeks late shipping?

[Bobby_M]

We have had about 200 boxes shipped out in early December still not make it first week of January. Most customers are being extremely patient but for those who's patience has run out we've reshipped with other carriers. Since USPS will allow loss claims after 15 days, we submit a claim the day we reship. Like clockwork, as soon as we file a claim the package that sat at a sort center for 20 days miraculously starts moving and the customer gets both boxes. Now we have to work with the customer to have them refuse the USPS package so we at least do not have to pay return shipping. The disaster here is that the loss claim is denied but they don't have the humanity to realize that they owe us the shipping cost since that is lost forever and they were 100% at fault for causing us to have to reship in the first place. We are losing a ton of money in both labor costs and actual shipping, not to mention floating inventory.

[arihalby]

Had the same issue shipped a few hundred packages mid December and most of my customers never got it. Its sitting in some distribution center. I filed alot of missing package claims and they started finally moving. Most customers I refunded fully they were pissed. The product was a health product and they needed it right away. Now I have to work on getting them all back because I refunded them ;(

[eshiplogistics]

Wait USPS? I had no problem with them.  UPS was taking 2 weeks on everyone.  USPS was way better, I mean they lost a couple packages but not much issue.

Are you guys shipping from states with weather?  I'm shipping from CA and noticed UPS ETA's for the east coast back then were like 2 weeks out on east coast states.  Covid & storms were allegedly to blame for UPS issues, I mean I believe it. They lost thousands just on me because I paid more for USPS which as I said all arrived fast.  I am guessing from your experiences it was the packages shipped from the trouble areas that sat while understaffed post offices dealt with personnel issues and such.

[Bobby_M]

No, I def mean USPS postal service. We don't have any weather but certain northeast sort centers are completely jammed. UPS ground has been +2 or +3 days at worst for us.

[eshiplogistics]

The floating inventory? No, mention it, Bobby. lol JK

I do shipping for clients who sell products, my client doesn't have the time and doesn't feel it's worth his time to fill out a claim so when a parcel is lost in the mail I just tell the customer it's lost in the mail and we will re-ship and to refuse the package when they get two.  I then re-use the label to reship and it gets to the customer fast and about 20 days later the lost in the mail package shows up, customer refuses it because they appreciate you trusting them and you didn't have to take the time to fill out the form nor lose postage.

[Bobby_M]

I've never thought to try reprinting the same label for the reships. On one hand, as long as the system will take the scans, that's great but now you will have multiple scans showing packages all over the place. The other issue is that when an order is 3 weeks late, the customer would be livid if I chose the same carrier again.

[eshiplogistics]

Thank you for the details, I got thinking and had someone check our first class USPS from that date range and sure enough we have a batch of first class parcels just sitting in LA or lost.  That particular item isn't one anyone needs in a hurry so nobody called in and complained but ty, it helped us out. 

[eric-siversen]

This is a tough one. Unfortunately I have never had much luck with USPS for claims. your best option is to maybe try going in person to the local post office to show them the issue and they may refer you to to postmaster who is in charge of that branch and see if you can work it that way. 

[AprilW]

We were having the same issue with 100+ shipments running 20+ days late. The major delays began suddenly on packages shipped December 10-14.  Most have been delivered as of this week, with the exception of 5 that have been in transit from 17-27 days as of today. After reaching out to these customers today, we confirmed they had in fact been delivered weeks ago, but were just never scanned by the postal carrier.

The majority of our late packages were headed to PA and were stalling in the Philadelphia or Harrisburg distribution centers. I spoke with a representative from USPS who informed us that in one day they had 200+ employee call-outs in the Harrisburg, PA distribution center due to COVID-19 and that at one point they had 34 tractor-trailer trucks full of mail waiting to be unloaded and sorted, but didn't have enough employees to unload and sort.

We also had several orders shipping to WV that were being routed through the Northeast due to distribution center closures.

The following is a response we received from a supervisor at USPS Select Business Customer Support Team on December 31, 2020:

"I apologize for the delays your business has experienced while shipping with USPS. As a result of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Priority Mail and First-Class packages have been experiencing delivery delays due to limited transportation availability.

Please let your customers know that we are doing everything we can to get them their packages in a timely manner. We rely heavily on our airline industry to get packages out of many areas and are at their mercy to do so. If they don't have readily available flights we see increasing delays. USPS has had plant closings and had to redirect mail for processing to different locations. Many times packages are being hand-sorted to keep the mail moving. Our tracking system may not reflect these events as we continue to provide service to our customers. We also know that some of our Processing Plants and Local Post Offices have been affected by the outbreak and are operating at 50% manpower or less.

Please be assured, the Postal Service’s goal is to move packages as expeditiously as possible, and we are committed to ensuring timely processing and delivery of essential packages. The Postal Service continually reviews its network capacity to provide the American public reliable, efficient, and fast delivery service.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this matter has caused."

[ARCreef]

Why won't ShipStation help with showing delayed shipments?   The community has been asking this for years and the requests (multiple)  always get closed by the SS.  

We should be able to set up an alert or have a column for days in transit.  If a shipment said it took 3 days when we shipped it we SHOULD be able to see that the shipment still hasn't been delivered 20 DAYS LATER!!! I can't check order by order for 1000's of shipments weekly.

To code this would take a few hours. To have this would allow shippers to preemptively handle the situation and refund or reship to the customer without the customer ever even knowing.  This is what customers want, this is what sellers want, but for some reason, this isn't what SS wants.  

If a shipment has been in transit by x # of days over the estimated then I want to know and correct this issue.  I have had 100's upon 100's of delayed shipments by USPS this December and January and not being able to jump on this and know I'm extremely frustrated, and now it's not just USPS I am frustrated at, it's also ShipStation as well.

[Jewelzy]

I am also having this issue with USPS!! My customer paid for 2 days of shipping and printed a customer's label on Friday, August 13th in Ashland, Oregon. it did not leave until Tuesday the 17th after midnight its destination is Missouri. a week later it's still in Oregon!! My customer called and she is so upset that she paid for two-day shipping and it will not get there until after 12 days! She now has asked me for a full refund so now I am stuck paying for her shipping and it was not my fault. It also happened with Fed Ex it showed 3 or 4 days via Ship Station

[Jewelzy]

i called customer service because my customer was leaving on a flight to Bali and was hand carrying her package it was all over the place. the customer service said well tell your customer to order overnight or two day! really people do not have $85.00 or more to pay for overnight what a crazy unprofessional answer/solution really??  I have customers using my product at health fairs where they buy a plane ticket and pay a lot of money to have a booth and pay for a hotel and they are relying on my package to get there in time . i cannot keep up with having to call customer service so much and wait and its just way way too much work and too much time spent. Maybe i should take off the option for overnight , 2nd day maybe even take off the option for 3-4 days. is it really this delayed because of Covid? i waited for about an hour on hold for a USPS customer service person and when they fina;lly came on they said there is nothing they could do because its via ship station app and they have nothing to do with it!  what? its their carrier service i am paying for and using!

[Jewelzy]

i called customer service because my customer was leaving on a flight to Bali and was hand carrying her package it was all over the place. the customer service said well tell your customer to order overnight or two day! really people do not have $85.00 or more to pay for overnight what a crazy unprofessional answer/solution really??  I have customers using my product at health fairs where they buy a plane ticket and pay a lot of money to have a booth and pay for a hotel and they are relying on my package to get there in time . i cannot keep up with having to call customer service so much and wait and its just way way too much work and too much time spent. Maybe i should take off the option for overnight , 2nd day maybe even take off the option for 3-4 days. is it really this delayed because of Covid? i waited for about an hour on hold for a USPS customer service person and when they fina;lly came on they said there is nothing they could do because it's via ship station app and they have nothing to do with it!  what? its their carrier service I am paying for and using! and ship station unless you pay a lot more per month there is no liver person I can call I have to email and hopefully get a reply! I am about to look for a new shipping App anyone have one they really like that easy to navigate?