I’ve been left waiting over two weeks for an order of chair cushions. It was supposed to be in stock. Instead the tracking shows it leaving China.
Two weeks wasted and waiting. Finally! My order status shows a failed delivery attempt by China Post. Never heard of them in my life. There’s nothing on my door or in in my mail.
I just sent a message to the seller. An auto reply said it may take two days to respond.
This is a complete farce. I get a message from Amazon informing me they are starting to use regional carriers. Would have been nice to tell us that BEFORE we ordered.
Fed Ex or UPS is how everyone expects to receive packages.
Not Any more.
If this is the new normal, my days of using Amazon may be over.
Your item is being sold by a Chinese entity, which has your item in their inventory. (That’s the “in stock” part, so it’s not like they’re lying.) They mail it out using a service provider available in that country. (That’s the “China Post” part.) Stuff being shipped from across the friggin’ globe usually takes a bit. This is unreasonable to you?
I get that you’ve never heard of China Post, and are therefore suspicious of their merits, but the average Chinese citizen has never heard of Torchy’s Tacos or Raising Cane’s and that won’t stop me from eating there, so I’m not sure what your point might be.
Wait … are you upset that FedEx and UPS aren’t the standard local shipping company for the Chinese countryside? Is that it?
Look, I order shit off Amazon from Chinese sellers plenty, especially jewelry making supplies like gemstones.
Pro: they’re damn cheap.
Con: it takes for-fucking-ever, kinda like the 6 to 8 weeks you had to allow as a kid when you ordered a toy off the back of a cereal box. OMG how did we survive those hellish days of our youth?!?
Pro: I’ve completely forgotten by that time, so eventually one day I wander out to the mailbox for my allotment of bills and credit card offers… and there’s a happy surprise! It’s like Christmas in July! Or April! Or October!
Are you certain this is sold by Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon? These include, but are not limited to, Prime shipping items.
Because people who use Amazon stores can use such random shippers, they should just reflect it in the ship time. The benefits are that shipping costs are pennies, which gets reflected in the item price.
Amazon itself does use smaller regional delivery services who receive from USPS or similar, and has done so for some time. E.g. OnTrac.
This has nothing to do with Amazon, they are just a marketplace for these vendors who do their own shipping, unless they hook up through Amazon for warehousing and delivery, which is indicated as such (“Fulfilled by Amazon”).
“China Post” is simply the national mail (post) and ground shipping service in China. Apparently you bought something shipped directly from the factory versus warehoused stateside, this was surely indicated in the shipping details on Amazon.
Guess who is the stateside deliverer of internal packages? The US Postal Service (Parcel Post).
Here is Amazon’s statementt that I’m pasting. This is on their Contact Carriers page. Long List. China Post is not on that list. Sigh…
So, I got a carrier claiming a delivery attempt was made and I have no way to contact them. No notice on my door, Zip.
This is a Fulfilled By Amazon Order . I didn’t realize that when I ordered. I will be very wary of this gotcha from now on. Getting help is much easier and quicker dealing with Amazon instead of someone in China, on the other side of the world.
I’ll give it a couple more days and then cancel the order.
We’re working our butts off trying to get a new house ready for my mom to move in. New cushions for her dining room chairs seemed like a routine order, two weeks ago.
I may need to cut my losses and go to Bed Bath and Beyond. What I should have done two weeks ago. It certainly looked like these were in stock when I placed the order. I rejected two other chair cushions because they weren’t in stock and I didn’t have the time to waste on back orders.
My main concern now is the shipper will claim several delivery attempts and give up. Since they aren’t leaving any delivery notices there’s not much I can do.
Fortunately, Amazon is typically pretty good at refunding the order when you’re not happy about stuff like this. One issue when dealing with a 3rd party is that Amazon may first defer to them. One trap you can fall into is going back and forth for a while until the refund duration is over (30 days? I’m not sure). After that, Amazon might not do anything. So be sure you’re emailing through the Amazon order so they have a paper trail and cut your losses early if it seems the seller isn’t going to fix it.
If it’s FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) it shouldn’t be coming via China post from China. If it says sold by XYZ, shipped by XYz, that’s not FBA.
Fulfilled by Amazon means it’s coming from an Amazon warehouse, and that might be shipped by USPS, UPS, ONTRAC, Amazon Logistics, FedEx, or a few others. Not China Post.
I had a light bulb moment when you mentioned my local post office mail.
Went back outside and shoved my hand deep down inside my mailbox. Pulled out a pink notice from my postman. I had missed it pulling out my other mail.
That’s so awesome. Best outcome I could ever hope for. Very, very easy to pick it up today.
Amazon tracking info had me completely confused. It just said, China Mail - failed delivery attempt. No indication that my postman was trying to deliver. I was searching everywhere for a contact phone number.
Your post alerted me to check for something from the post office.
I’m going to start treating Amazon just like eBay.
Click on every seller name. Check their feedback, where are they located, and when did they open their account.
Didn’t know this was necessary on Amazon and it caused me some grief.
This experience has taught me a valuable lesson.
It’s better to buy a product sold by Amazon even if another product is more attractive and desireable. Third party sellers can potentially cause delays.
I never have packages delivered to my door anymore. I have them shipped to a local Amazon Locker. That won’t get a slow boat from China to go any faster, but it eliminates all possibilities of any “missed delivery” (or package theft).
I ordered a “fulfillment by Amazon” thing. Full disclosure, it was Magicbax earring backs, which I saw on TV for $19.95, plus shipping (special bonus, TWO sets). But going onto Amazon I found I could do much better and got them for $2.99, with free shipping. The downside: They came from China. I ordered these things in January and got them March 2, but before I got them I got a long explanation in fractured English about how the deal was no longer available but yes my items would ship. It sounded like I wasn’t ever going to get them, frankly…but I did get them. Luckily, I wasn’t in any hurry for them.
And they are easily worth $2.99. They are probably worth even more, for two sets. I love these things but I doubt that I’d want to have paid $19.99 plus shipping for them. They do work, but I can see them losing their grip after a lot of use. Maybe the $19.99 ones are better quality, but I doubt it.
Wait, do things work that differently in America? Where else would one look for a missed delivery notice? Are they routinely taped to the door, or something? Can only the mailman put things into the mailbox?
I had missed it pulling out my other mail.