I’ve got an email from Amazon on the 22nd saying an item had been shipped. It gives an ETA of March 6th.
They gave me a tracking code, but when I enter the code at the USPS website it still says “We have no record of this item.” Amazon’s “where’s my stuff” page says “This item has left the facility and is in transit.” It lists that next to a location in Kentucky.
Does this mean it’s somewhere between Amazon’s warehouse and the USPS right now?
Should I expect to wait all the way until March 6, or is that an outside estimate? (I would think it would behoove them to give an outside estimate so that it when it actually arrives earlier, the customer will feel all happy about it.)
It may be relevant that the item is the new Kindle, since that means a whole lot of the same item went out all at once. But I don’t think it’s relevant, since apparently it’s now out of Amazon’s hands, if I’m reading what I’m seeing right.
Since it was shipped by USPS, all Amazon can really do is give their best (probably conservative) guess. The tracking on USPS is terrible compared to UPS or Fedex, IMHO. It may show the same thing until the package shows up at your door. That said, I find it hard to believe that is would take almost two weeks to get from Kentucky to anywhere in the continental U.S.
Was it shipped Priority Mail? If so, it should get there in 2-3 days regardless of what the Delivery Confirmation info shows.
If it was shipped using a slower method, it may very well take a while.
It’s called Delivery Confirmation for a reason. As Baracus mentioned, it’s really only useful for making sure, after the fact, that an item was successfully delivered. It’s not a full-fledged, real-time tracking system like the UPS or FedEx ones.
AFAIK USPS only updates their tracking stuff once each night. It says so on the tracking page, doesn’t it?
I recently dropped off a package at the local USPS, paid for it, they scanned it and gave me my tracking number. It wasn’t until the next day that the tracking page said “scanned at ZipperTown Post Office.”
I don’t think it says they update it once each night–besides, they should have had it for two nights by now–but it does say if it was recieved by them “recently” they might not have information yet.
Here’s a site that claims to use PHP scripts to get information directly from USPS about how long a package should take to be delivered, given a starting and ending zip code.
From KY to my TX zip code it says 6 days.
I couldn’t find any page at USPS itself which offers this kind of information, though, so I don’t know what the PHP script is acutally interacting with.
Amazon.com/UPS are very reliable with their two day shipping. When UPS delivers, they will acually note something like “Left on front porch” or “Handed to female.”
If the USPS is involved, all bets are off, especially if it’s first-class mail. Delivery Confirmation can mean it was delivered to your door, or just that it made it to your post office!
Amazon in general I find to be very good about shipping. I buy from them a lot and always choose the free shipping option, and have always received my items before the actual estimated date. That said, the Post Office is horrible about tracking, as others have said, and I have learned not to rely on their website being updated or providing real time information at all. I much prefer UPS shipping when possible.
Typically, when you mail something domestically at a mailbox or post office (except via Express Mail), you get no tracking/confirmation at all. You can pay something like 35 cents to add a Delivery Confirmation sticker onto your letter or package, and that gets you a stub with your DC number on it.
If you do it electronically (either via their website or through custom software like the kind I assume Amazon uses), DC is integrated into the printed label and is usually free.
The USPS website might call it something more general, but AFAIK Delivery Confirmation is this service’s proper name, and the “tracking number” you get from Amazon is just non-official wordage. You might notice, at the USPS’s Track & Confirm website, that “Tracking” services apply only to Express and international mail, and other mail is limited to DC, Signature Confirmation, Certified Mail etc.
And even when it’s electronic, it’s still not real-time. Sometimes, when I’m lucky, I see the status change every night. Other times, the info will stay the same from the first day until 1-2 days AFTER delivery. As a eBay seller, I used to warn people not to pay attention to their tracking system and to contact me only if the package doesn’t actually arrive by the specified date.
I’ve used Amazon a lot and generally speaking I’d say expect to wait all the way until the estimated delivery date. It’s usually pretty accurate, whether it’s through the postal service, Fedex, or U.P.S. Don’t expect it earlier than that.
Here’s something you can try - copy/paste the USPS tracking number into the fedex tracking page.
The reason I suggest this is that sometimes Amazon uses FedEx’s SmartPost service, which ships the package by FedEx most of the way and then transfers to USPS for the final delivery. Amazon only mentions the USPS part of it.
I had a package from Amazon a few weeks ago that showed tracking info similar to yours - the Amazon tracking page claimed it was ‘in transit’ for days while the USPS site claimed to have no record of the number. Using the fedex site I could see that it started in Kentucky, went to Dallas, made its way north to Wisconsin, was handed off to USPS and then sent to me in Chicago. It arrived a few days before the estimated delivery.
I assume they’ve worked out the logistics and decided it’s more efficient this way, but I guess they haven’t found a good way to combine the tracking number information.
It went with major shipments of their other goods and arrived in the specified time window? It was probably easier and cheaper than throwing it on a USPS semi truck and driving north. (Isn’t FedEx is the company that used to route every shipment through their hub in Memphis?)