If you shopped online during the holiday season or the coronavirus outbreak, you likely had a frustrating experience because customers had to wait a few days or even a few weeks longer to receive their products. The recent crisis made people stay at home for a long period of time and this was also a peak time for most online shopping websites. Shipments slowed down all over the United States, either when they were shipped via UPS, Fedex, or USPS. In this post, we are checking out the top reasons for the delay and how to receive your products faster.
1. Holiday Surge
Shipping couriers have to face delays due to the influx of holiday shipments and in many cases, you probably won’t receive your package on time. That would be terrible if you didn’t have gifts for your family on Christmas day. Therefore, it is not a good idea to be a last-minute holiday gift-buyer. If you don’t have a choice, you can shop online on some retailers with brick-and-mortar stores like Walmart or Target, then choose the option to pick up on the same day. The best solution is still shopping a few weeks or months in advance.
2. Weather or disaster
Sometimes, the delays might be caused by severe weather conditions. If it is in a hurricane season and you know there is an incoming storm, you should hold off your order a little bit until everything settles down.
The recent shutdown due to deadly coronavirus also led to huge delays and delivery backlogs. E-commerce websites were delivering a record number of packages and of course, couriers were not prepared for this. If you make a USPS, Fedex, or UPS tracking request, you probably see the “Emergency or Weather-Related Delay” message. If you are lucky, your package might have arrived at a nearby customer center or distribution center; If that’s the case, you can request a pickup to get your product quicker.
In case you order products from overseas, you can use services like pkge.net. It offers worldwide tracking option, so you can just input the tracking number, it will figure out the shipper automatically and show the current location of your package. Another interesting functionality is that you can find out the status of an Amazon order using only the order number.
3. Incorrect Address
This is another popular reason leading to the delay. You might not be aware of that until you see the delivery exception when tracking your package. You probably entered the wrong zip code, forgot to add suite/apartment number, or misspelled street address. If the UPS driver can’t locate your address, he will take it back to the distribution center. You can contact UPS to pick up your package or update the address so that they could make another delivery attempt; Notice that there might be a fee when you update the address, so make sure to check with the courier.
For any reason, you should always follow the shipment progress to make sure your package is not lost or stolen. All shipping services have the option to receive texts or mails when there is an update in shipment or delivery, so you should enable it especially when your order is valuable.
