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How COVID is Impacting Overseas Shipping from Syntaur
The shipping of packages overseas from the US has seemingly
reached an all-time low, with standard First Class parcels
taking six weeks or more to even leave the US. Because of this
situation, we have made the difficult decision to only ship
orders via UPS Expedited or USPS Express Mail to overseas
destinations. While we hate to add this expense, we don�t want
to simply stop taking overseas orders, as some companies have
done. And we hope that in the near future, the postal situation
will improve, and we will once again offer First Class shipping.
If you've already placed an order with standard shipping, or would just like to know the cause of these delays, these are the things that are contributing to the problem: - There are five USPS International Distribution Centers in the US, and all overseas mail passes through one of these before leaving the country. The Chicago center serves Texas (where Syntaur is located), and as of August 2021, it is overwhelmed with packages and has a backlog of about six weeks. If you've received other packages from the US in a more timely manner, they were likely processed through a different distribution center. - Overseas mail travels on commercial cargo planes, filling up any available space. However, many of these planes have not been flying due to COVID, and the number of planes coming in and out of the country has not yet reached where it was pre-COVID. When planes are available, there's not enough space on them to handle all of the outbound packages from the US. - Many, if not most, countries (including the US) are having issues keeping up with mail due to COVID restrictions, backlogs of packages, health requirements, and lack of personnel. - Occasionally, customers are not receiving notifications from their customs office when their package arrives in their country, and their package sits at the customs office waiting for import duties to be paid. This can even result in the package being returning to us. The return and re-ship process is exacerbated as those packages typically take more than a month to get returned to the US - and then the shipment process starts all over again. While we would all like to be done with COVID, the effects of the pandemic are still causing issues and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. If you would like more info on what may be causing mail disruptions in your country specifically, USPS has a list of all service disruptions here: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm We are seeing reasonable delivery times with Express Mail and with UPS Expedited service, and are confident that, using these services, we can get your order to you efficiently. Thank you for your understanding! |