My experience must be out of the norm them! I recently ordered 3 t-shirts from a US company. They were fan designs of one of our fave Netflix shows and 1 was for my mum and the other 2 were for me. They had 3 shipping options for international deliveries, all of them through DHL and all the same delivery window of 7-14 business days including the making of the t-shirts. We chose the middle option of DHL Local. Within 24 hours of the order I received an email saying they had been shipped and a tracking number with DHL. The tracking showed it was on itâs way to the DHL DC on 22/2 and arrived at the terminal location 1/3 before showing as transport to destination country the following day. This is literally within the same US state.
As the DHL tracking showed a USPS tracking number, I loaded that into both the USPS and AusPost apps to track. Previous experience has told me USPS tracking is much better and more detailed. There was no movement on tracking for a the best part of the week, so I tweeted AusPost, DHL and USPS. AusPost was the only one that replied, and asked me to DM with the tracking number. They replied with:
Thanks for sending that through Bryan! So thereâs nothing to indicate that a physical parcel is with either us or USPS currently, thatâs why itâs showing âPendingâ on our end and âPre-Shipmentâ from USPS. This may just mean the item is travelling with DHL overseas so Iâd recommend continuing to track it with them and getting in touch with their customer service for any questions
So I contacted DHL who replied:
Hi. Thank you for contacting DHL Parcel and DHL eCommerce regarding the delivery of your shipment. According to our information your shipment is in transit to Australia on 26 February, 2019. Once your shipment arrives in your destination country, it will be handed over to Australia Post. The arrival of your shipment may take up to 11 business days and the estimated delivery date will be by 12 March, 2019. If you do not receive the shipment at your shipping address within 10 business days from the estimated delivery date, kindly contact your online merchant/sender. Your online merchant/sender will advise you on the next available options. Please note that an official investigation can only be raised by our contract partners, in this case your online merchant/sender.
I randomly went into the AusPost app to remove the tracking from something else on Thur 14th and it showed had arrived in Sydney 12.20am that morning.
I updated AusPost and they replied with the following:
Hi Bryan, thanks for the update. International articles can be a little tricky sometimes, I do agree. Generally, the universal tracking number you have used (AB123456789CD) will show the entire journey from the sending country, to the destination country. In this case however, it just looks like your sender has used a method that doesnât integrate with our tracking system, and vice versa, without getting too technical. Iâm sure next time you have something heading from overseas youâll have no troubles, and Iâm glad to see item LXxxxxxxxxxUS is along the way in NSW as we speak. Please let me know if you have any additional concerns
It then arrived in Melbourne the afternoon of Friday 15th and was delivered in Adelaide Mon 18th. There was no update made to USPS tracking between pre-shipment and delivery and no update between transport to destination country and delivered on DHL. So in my case AusPost was actually faster and more efficient with better tracking than DHL or USPS. I actually emailed the retailer just to give them feedback, and within an hour they had refunded the entire shipping costs, which was $30.30