Why Shipping Takes So Long Now

Ever since the pandemic hit, things have never been the same and shipping is no exception. Things take longer to arrive than they used to, and cost far more to send as much as they did before. Just to give you an idea, a parcel that used to cost $10-12 to ship and took 2-3 weeks to deliver could now cost almost $18-20 and may take 4-6 weeks to deliver.

It's frustrating both for you waiting on your package and for us trying to get it to you, and for now the best thing we can do is stay patient and understand why things are the way they are at the moment.

So what's happening behind the scenes to cause such a change in shipping? Here's what we know from our shipping suppliers:

1. LIMITED AIRFREIGHT SERVICES
   Since the pandemic started, airfreight services went from completely cancelled, to partially suspended and now to operating with reduced or limited capacities/services.
   
   
2. AIRFREIGHT OVERLOAD DUE TO MANUFACTURING & OCEAN FREIGHT DELAYS 
   On top of airfreight services already being reduced, manufacturing delays caused by lockdowns and ocean freight issues have pushed more and more businesses to use airfreight instead, adding more pressure to the airfreight supply chain.
   All of this together causes unprecedented levels of backlog, so even after dispatch many parcels go through a slow period waiting to get onto a flight.
   
   
3. IMPORT & CUSTOMS PROCESSES ARE SLOWER
   Once a shipment arrives at its destination, it doesn't immediately get put through customs. Instead, it again waits in a queue to be processed through the import facility and pushed through the customs process. Sometimes a parcel can arrive into the destination port and wait weeks just to get processed through the import facility! 
   
   
4. RESOURCES ARE OVERWHELMED
   With all the extra volume hitting the airfreight network, the people handling everything along the process are getting overwhelmed. Workers across every aspect of logistics, from the export facilities to the customs offices and even drivers and delivery personnel, are struggling to keep up with the volume increase as the operating resources are not (or at least not to the same degree). 

All of these aspects of an affected supply chain have hit us small businesses hard and while we do always try our best to get things moving as fast as we can, we will still need your patience as parcels move through their journeys at this new pace.