It seems that the delivery of SpeedPAK shipments are getting longer and longer. As of this coming Monday my most recent China shipment will have taken one month to arrive – if it does.
Now, I do understand that there are members here who say that “…it always takes longer…” for shipments from China. But from my numerous past experiences over many years having the seller ship via the past ePacket method I never had to wait for more than 10 days before delivery.
Several members have commented that eBay has no affiliation with the SpeedPAK service but according to several business publications found last year it was stated that eBay had entered into an agreement with SpeedPAK in March of 2018 to “…help speed delivery of products from greater China to buyers in other parts of the world…”. So as far as I am concerned, eBay has a stake in this shipping service.
What I see may be the major problem here is that, as opposed to ePacket, SpeedPAK is a freight aggregator who collects a large amount of packages in China then ships them in a bulk fashion over to the United States. When they arrive here the Chinese shipping labels are then covered over with newly generated USPS compatible shipping labels. I am assuming that the new labels have to be either OCR’d or hand generated because after the SpeedPAK tracking information goes dead after the package lands here in the US via the east coast there is an additional delay of 8-15 days before the package arrives at this location.
Add to this that SpeedPAK does not use any additional form of USPS tracking once it arrives here it then becomes frustrating to figure out where the package is in our country. It may be a ploy by SpeedPAK to generate a smoke screen to keep the receiver from noticing that their package is languishing in some warehouse waiting for its new USPS label.
My previous comment on the receipt times of the faster ePacket deliveries seems to have some additional bearing on how the package arrives. All of the ePacket shipments arrived via the west coast (usually Seattle) while the SpeedPAKs arrive via the east coast before their movement goes dead somewhere in the east or Midwest. Since I live in the western part of the US I think that this may have some bearing on those members in the eastern part of the US who occasionally state that they receive their SpeedPAK shipments on a much faster basis.
I am not a seller so do not know the shipping options eBay now offers to sellers and if they any longer have a choice of choosing ePacket for delivery. It seems that the changeover to SpeedPAK has been done on a wholesale basis for all China sellers. From the numerous negative comments found on the Internet regarding the slowness of SpeedPAK I don’t understand how eBay can ignore this issue.
Although it is not right to chastise the seller, if there is still a choice remaining between ePacket and SpeedPAK methods it might do some good to indicate what is going on when giving them feedback.
