eBay

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

I live in the DFW area.

I have shipped a lot of First-Class Packages to Canada, Italy and Finland in the last 6 months and all were delivered successfully within 3 weeks with regular tracking updates.

I shipped 1 package each (total 3) to those 3 countries and also 1 Domestic in the last week of March 2019 and none of them are showing any activity anymore. Canada and Finland package tracking is not even going past the city next to me and the one to ITALY stopped showing any updates once it arrived the International Distribution Facility in Jamaica NY on March 31st. The one sent to Florida went dead on tracking once it reached its destination city distribution center. None of those packages have been delivered after contacting my Buyers.

Since after April 1st, I have shipped about 7 more USPS First-Class International packages and all are getting tracked and processed timely and either already delivered or almost delivered.

Did you guys experience any such issues with First-Class packages shipped in the last week of March 2019 especially overseas ?

Thank you for any insight.

green-night · ‎04-17-2019

None of those packages have been delivered after contacting my Buyers.

I never check to see if any of my packages get delivered. Unless a buyer contacts me or opens an INR, then I just ship it and forget it. And I would never ever contact my buyers about it either.

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

My point is that those are the only 3 international and 1 domestic package that are showing no tracking updates 3 days after shipments. All packages shipped before and after them, show complete package tracking till delivered.

All packages come with "Delivery confirmation".

toysoldierco · ‎04-17-2019

I am experiencing the same problem. Starting in the month of March, my First Class Mail International Parcels all show very limited tracking information. The number of packages is about 25. Several appear to never have been scanned at all. Most have been delivered - with the tracking status showing they were received at my regional center (Jamaica NY) - with no further information. I am following up with my buyers and most parcels are still being delivered. Some are delayed up to 30 days at this point. That unfortunately is not uncommon so it's impossible to know yet whether the tracking problem is at fault.

I cannot figure out I can do to address the problem, short of discontinuing the First Class Mail International shipping option. I would lose a great deal of business if I did that. My buyers are understandably concerned to see their parcels were picked up on March 17, scanned on March 18, and no further updates are posted. If the USPS has changed their tracking support for this class of service I cannot find any official announcement of that. Something has changed, as this was never the case before March 2019.

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

@toysoldierco wrote:
I am experiencing the same problem. Starting in the month of March, my First Class Mail International Parcels all show very limited tracking information. The number of packages is about 25. Several appear to never have been scanned at all. Most have been delivered - with the tracking status showing they were received at my regional center (Jamaica NY) - with no further information. I am following up with my buyers and most parcels are still being delivered. Some are delayed up to 30 days at this point. That unfortunately is not uncommon so it's impossible to know yet whether the tracking problem is at fault.
I cannot figure out I can do to address the problem, short of discontinuing the First Class Mail International shipping option. I would lose a great deal of business if I did that. My buyers are understandably concerned to see their parcels were picked up on March 17, scanned on March 18, and no further updates are posted. If the USPS has changed their tracking support for this class of service I cannot find any official announcement of that. Something has changed, as this was never the case before March 2019.

Good to know, I'm not the only one experiencing this.

Thank you for your response.

dbmm-media · ‎04-17-2019

quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

@dbmm-media wrote:
quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's

It's not babysitting. The issue is if USPS has stopped tracking First-Class International then I need to stop offering it.

green-night · ‎04-17-2019

@electrostation wrote:
@dbmm-media wrote:
quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's
It's not babysitting. The issue is if USPS has stopped tracking First-Class International then I need to stop offering it.

How would you know then unless you are babysitting your shipments?

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

@green-night wrote:
@electrostation wrote:
@dbmm-media wrote:
quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's
It's not babysitting. The issue is if USPS has stopped tracking First-Class International then I need to stop offering it.

How would you know then unless you are babysitting your shipments?

Sorry, I meant to say not "about" babysitting. I need to know if USPS does not support tracking anymore on First-Class International packages for the many destinations so I can stop offering that service.

zanadoo_56 · ‎04-17-2019

@electrostation wrote:
@dbmm-media wrote:
quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's
It's not babysitting. The issue is if USPS has stopped tracking First-Class International then I need to stop offering it.

Is it worth checking a few of the tracking numbers (after a period of time of course) at the destination countries' mail sites? Just because USPS has gone slack or whatever, that doesn't mean the tracking is not being updated in the destination country once a package has reached that country.

It's something to consider.

I would hate for sellers to ditch USPS 1st Class International to overseas. That would leave us with the GSP which is expensive and slow and tedious to track = lots of different numbers en route, often stopping at Fedex who in my recent experience passed the parcel on to someone else but didn't notify me. On the Fedex site recently it gave a very good impression of delivering my parcel according to their tracking.

The truth was they offloaded it to Australia Post (and I had to ask Fedex for the AP tracking no after I phoned them when it looked like my parcel was going nowhere). That's when I discovered AP now had my parcel, and sure enough it was AP that delivered it.

electrostation · ‎04-17-2019

@zanadoo_56 wrote:
@electrostation wrote:
@dbmm-media wrote:
quit babysitting your scans....

do not contact the buyers. if there is a issue, they will contact you.

by contacting them, you are opening yourself for INR's
It's not babysitting. The issue is if USPS has stopped tracking First-Class International then I need to stop offering it.
Is it worth checking a few of the tracking numbers (after a period of time of course) at the destination countries' mail sites? Just because USPS has gone slack or whatever, that doesn't mean the tracking is not being updated in the destination country once a package has reached that country.
It's something to consider.
I would hate for sellers to ditch USPS 1st Class International to overseas. That would leave us with the GSP which is expensive and slow and tedious to track = lots of different numbers en route, often stopping at Fedex who in my recent experience passed the parcel on to someone else but didn't notify me. On the Fedex site recently it gave a very good impression of delivering my parcel according to their tracking.
The truth was they offloaded it to Australia Post (and I had to ask Fedex for the AP tracking no after I phoned them when it looked like my parcel was going nowhere). That's when I discovered AP now had my parcel, and sure enough it was AP that delivered it.

I checked on the destination countries postal website too and no luck so I really don't know what to think. I just checked a couple from a week ago and it "is" showing tracking correctly.

What happened to those packages I shipped between March 26th and March 31st ? Seems like all my packages from that time period are having issues with showing tracking on USPS and on the destination countries postal website.

green-night · ‎04-18-2019

Of course FCI tracking still works for e-delcon countries. You obviously just hit some kind of glitch or hiccup during that time period - who knows why? There is no way that service is suddenly going to just disappear in the blink of an eye and not a word said by anyone. And why would it ever disappear - it's here to stay.

mg152 · ‎04-18-2019

Never contact a buyer. They may have been delivered but not scanned. The buyer will contact you if they don’t get the items. By contacting them you’ve opened a can of worms IMHO.

Patricia
eBay member for 25 years

electrostation · ‎04-19-2019

@mg152 wrote:
Never contact a buyer. They may have been delivered but not scanned. The buyer will contact you if they don’t get the items. By contacting them you’ve opened a can of worms IMHO.

Ok, so now 2 of the Buyers in Canada have contacted me that they still haven't received (more than 24 days now) their packages and both these Buyers I never asked about their packages being delivered or not so something messy is definitely going on with these deliveries. Normal delivery to Canada with First-Class from me is usually 1 - 2 weeks.