Shipping Issues

Fiddleback Outpost

Fiddleback Outpost

Joined
Apr 29, 2016
Messages
790
Here's a copy of a blog post that will accompany Fiddleback Friday's preview newsletter. I thought I'd post it early here for those that may only view the preview on BladeForurms.
...

We wanted to share some experiences we are seeing with shipping issues lately.

We have also been seeing USPS tracking scans fail after the initial pickup occurs here. The pickup is the first scan on the tracking, which should be followed by a tracking scan at every location the package arrives at or departs from. However, the packages continue to move through transit, but may not continue tracking. USPS's tracking system and their transit are independent from one another…so they often continue moving with no tracking…sometimes until they reach their final destination! We have seen several instances where the only 2 tracking events that happened were a pickup from here, and a delivery on the other side of the country.

While most of the issues have just been lack of tracking scans, we have seen some actual delays, although more rare. We have had several instances recently of packages with USPS being delayed during transit. Several U.S. hubs are prone to severe delays, such as Detroit, as well as others. International packages are sometimes delayed as much as 30 days on top of the original long transit times. Although we've noticed an uptick in these occurrences, packages within the USA are rarely delayed more than a few days from what we've noticed.

Many people find it difficult to understand just how much things have changed in shipping over the last several months. On top of increased package quantities due to people shopping online more and USPS workers getting sick (real or not, they've been calling out in masse), there are other big issues at play also. International hubs have been overwhelmed because of packages being refused by other countries and vice versa. The pile up causes everything to move slower through those facilities. Also, USPS heavily uses commercial flights to transport mail between hubs in the USA. Well, as you may know, flights have been drastically cut in number with fewer people flying because of Covid-19. That has severely affected USPS's ability to move packages between hubs, causing a nationwide shift in patterns...almost always increasing delays.

Recently, the new Postmaster General has announced massive cuts resulting in layoffs, but most impactful, loss of overtime for workers. That means that packages still undelivered at their scheduled quit time, will remain undelivered. There's no staying late to make sure everything gets where it's supposed to be. Packages will likely be left sitting at several points during the transit process where they would have moved previously. Literally, workers have been instructed that "not everything needs to be delivered every day".

In other words, everyone should expect delays...as well as tracking issues. It's important to understand that these delays are likely to continue throughout 2020 and they are outside of our control. The good news is, packages are arriving intact and undamaged as they have previously done. USPS's success rate in packages not being lost remains reliable.

Read more here
 
We are having similar issues at Pops unfortunately.
 
My last knife was delayed a few days but delayed gratification is not always bad. As long as nothing gets lost its all good but I have to say with all of the wrong mail that ends up coming to my house I do keep my fingers crossed until the box is in my hand. I just wish some of you were my neighbors so random fiddlebacks would be showing up here, that would be fun plus I could tell my wife that the endless boxes probably belong to someone else.
 
Last edited:
I'll add my $0.02 FWIW on this issue. What is stated above is all correct but there is an additional underlying issue which I became aware of when I was shipping precious metal coins to buyers. I required detailed tracking on the coins I shipped for obvious reasons and became concerned when I noticed that many of my shipments were not properly showing ongoing USPS tracking history. I spoke with the local postmaster who did not have a good explanation as to what was occurring.

Subsequently, I realized the following - as noted above, the USPS tracking system and their transit system appear to be independent - which should not be the case. In order to have the two USPS (transit/shipping) systems be 'in-synch', the shipped item to be tracked MUST be brought by the customer physically in to the post office and be presented to a postal teller/clerk. It is that particular first scan which places the to-be-shipped item properly into the USPS tracking system (where tracking, travel, and transit are all properly represented). Any other 'first' scan (ie: items picked up from your work location by a postal worker/satellite pick up location, etc.) does not seem to place the item properly into their system. This appears to be a flaw in their tracking system, since inception, which is ongoing to this day. Once the item reaches its final postal center destination and is scanned at that point - the system notes this and makes it appear as if it has been properly tracked all along - which is not the case. Should the item never reach that final postal center, all the system will 'see' and report is the very first point of scanning - it will 'appear' as if the item had never moved from it's initial location. Note that what I mention here does appear to be occurring with FBF shipments; However, since all the FBF items I have purchased have been received, it appears to become a non-issue.

Fortunately, the USPS does have a very good overall delivery track record for mail/package delivery with a low loss rate - but be aware of the above if you have an item of value that you are shipping and for which you want a detailed tracking history. Items you want detailed tracking information on therefore should be physically brought in to a postal teller - paid for and scanned at that location or shipped by registered mail (where personal presentation of the item also has to occur). Note that priority and express mail also appear to have the same tracking issues.

Regards,
Gary
 
Last edited:
Oh hell ... where to start, what to share :)

I have a friend who works for USPS, has been a rural contracted carrier for several years and became a USPS employee in the past couple of months. They've had exposure to 4 or 5 different locations and it is like any other place of work/business/industry where each location is susceptible to the human factor. Similar to how I teach motorcycle classes part time .. we are supposed to teach to the curriculum, not stray, not toss in your own style or personal point of view. If you take an MSF course in Maine or Ohio or Texas or wherever, it ought to be the same experience. But, the human factor kicks in and you have people who are over zealous and want to add too much, people who skip things because they're running late, (a few) people who are lazy and just there for the pay, and so on. Think of how you were sick of a job at some point, the politics, the whatever. So you decided to go get a new job and after a while, guess what; same $hit, different place. hahaha

That being said, here's an example from some recent venting from the friend: If you drop something off in the USPS drop box out front, they are supposed to scan them as received when the packages are brought into the building. And from there, certain scans should happen at certain places along the way. But, variety and style and procedure slippage happens. Working at a temporary location last week, my friend voiced their opinion to the supervisor that the people bringing in the packages from the drop box were not scanning the packages as received. The reply was that it was acceptable because they didn't have time and it just became standard practice. Then they pointed out that the supervisor was losing out on an annual bonus they could get for having no missed scans at their facility. Apparently he wasn't aware of that which ticked him off even more. He just wanted to know how they knew that because they are a new hire but they didn't divulge it was overheard between management at a different location.

Anyway, the point is that it is all a crap shoot and depends on where your packages flow through and how well they follow procedure.


And after taking that into consideration, it seems like things are about to get pretty dang slow, I think especially if things are flowing through the south. If you look at a US map of coronavirus trends and anywhere there is red, consider a high percentage of carriers, clerks, truck drivers, etc. to be out sick and the rest of those who are working being over-worked or new or are being called in from neighboring towns to come help. How quickly do you think a carrier is going to run a route if they're from a town 30 or 50 miles away and absolutely not familiar with street names/addresses? Heck, truck drivers who are doing substitute routes are getting lost and can't even find the post office they're going to and then the early morning sorting and distribution to carriers gets hosed and then the rest of the day's schedule goes out of wack, including things the carriers pick up to take back for shipping. They run late and miss the truck, that package is going to be delayed a full day till the end-of-day next truck goes out. Add all those delays up per location / point of transfer.


Here are some scans of a knife I sold and sent out a couple weeks ago. There's 90 miles between Victoria and Corpus sooooo someone wasn't using that scanner properly. Unless we got a bullet train and I haven't heard of it yet. lol
VC Scans.jpg


Then there is Amazon, who USPS delivers for and is supposed to make those Prime smiley boxes a priority.
Prime Smile.jpg


But for positive notes..
  • Do consider what Robert pointed out about things NOT going missing. They'll get there, just not as quickly as we'd prefer.
  • Be nice to USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc. folks. Tell them thank you. Give them a bottle of water.

Last week, I thanked my carrier for delivering something at 9pm the evening before .. and it wasn't a sarcastic "thank you" because the poor bastaad was out there in the heat all day trying to get things delivered. I wasn't thrilled at first that the mail came so late but after I thought about it, I appreciated that they didn't just quit at 5pm and take the undelivered stuff back to the post office to deliver it the next day. But, they might start doing that with USPS tightening down on OT and costs.
 
there was this one:(

Acceptance Cutoff: 05/19/2020 4:30 PM<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Acceptance Time: No Data
Expected Date: 05/22/2020 11:59 PM
Delivery Status:Delivered, Front Door/Porch
2020-07-10 12:00:00.0<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Label Actions
USPS Tracking®Ship Again

i hope he sends the replacement back
 
While I've purchased 2 knives the last few weeks and they all arrived in 2 or 3 days, I have a sheath from Outpost for my pocket kephart somewhere for almost 2 weeks "Shipped Sep, 29" :-( Can't wait to carry my knife! Was sure I'd have by the end of the week I purchased based on previous experience with the knives but seems like that wasn't the case!

Are you guys seeing delays like this other than the "no tracking scan" issue?
 
there was an issue with the last sheath I ordered, I was not notified when it shipped.

the wait wasn't unreasonable though - still took about two weeks from placing my order to its arrival, which is the essence of what is promised on the outpost's sheath page.

(currently waiting for my next sheath order, it's been about two weeks now, so I'm expecting it either to show up or to hear it has shipping sometime in the coming week)

maybe try shooting the outpost people an email, if they don't get back to you here?

they were very responsive when I asked them what happened to the sheath I ordered.
 
Last edited:
It was definitely shipped on the 29th I have the tracking, I just wasn’t expecting for it to take 2 weeks given I got my knives in just 3 days worst case! But given you are seeing the same 2 weeks timeframe seems I’m not the only one!
 
I should add I also live about 2500-3000 miles away from the fiddlefolks :(

totally understand the wanting to carry the knife. this is the sheath for the woodpecker I ordered, and I'm rather itching for it all

like the leek dance meme video :rolleyes: it's sad, but trueo_O:cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top