PSA: Canada Post seems backed up with infrequent scans.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I know some people drop packages off without scans, or put small ones in the mailbox, which doesn’t create an acceptance scan.

Since last week, scans at Canada Post plants have been rare and everything has been moving slowly. Normally I can tell when a package should hit a processing plant, but almost everything I sent last week is taking longer and bouncing between plants with no scans.

This happened to every package I mailed, just in different ways. Two of them still have no scans, but I’m not worried. When Canada Post is slow like this, the first scan often shows up at the buyer's local plant or on the out-for-delivery scan.

I suspect they are backed up because of Black Friday volumes. If you are seeing similar issues, I guess the PSA is it's not just you, your packages are not lost. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Just an update: The two missing scans were scanned tonight in my city. I dropped them off about a week ago. 

I have no idea how this stuff comes in and out of the processing plant, but that tells me they were so backed up that they are still processing stuff locally from last week. 

Acceptance scans usually have no value, since items usually get a processing scan a few hours later, and judging by the thousands of packages I've sent this way nothing ever gets lost between where it was accepted and the processing plant.

But, if you're worried about customers wrongly perceiving that you were late shipping their package, it might be a good idea to ensure you get acceptance scans. 

[transtraders]

I think USPS is backed up somewhat as well, it seems to be taking longer than normal for delivery I noticed on some of my recent sales.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

---

@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:

Just an update: The two missing scans were scanned tonight in my city. I dropped them off about a week ago. 

I have no idea how this stuff comes in and out of the processing plant, but that tells me they were so backed up that they are still processing stuff locally from last week. 

Acceptance scans usually have no value, since items usually get a processing scan a few hours later, and judging by the thousands of packages I've sent this way nothing ever gets lost between where it was accepted and the processing plant.

But, if you're worried about customers wrongly perceiving that you were late shipping their package, it might be a good idea to ensure you get acceptance scans. 

---

If they are scanning less frequently (due to xmas surge) could be why the ebay label charges are slowwwww as molasses in January to process. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

It might be. The scanning activity seems very infrequent and random. I'll have one that gets scanned locally the same night, another that doesn't get any scan until it hits a facility out of town, and then another that as I saw tonight takes 5 days to be processed locally.

I don't get scans because they usually do not add any value for the customer when I can consistently expect a processing scan within the same night (or at worst 24 hours). Nothing has ever gone missing in a red mail box out of thousands of parcels. It takes an extra 15-30 minutes to make the extra trip to get everything scanned. That's per dropoff. So based on my proximety to a Post Office (plus waiting in line) vs a mail box, it could easily add up to an entire extra 8 hour workday a month.

With that said, I will get my items scanned this week just to give people the piece of mind because it is that time of year where some orders are going to be gifts.