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It’s always frustrating when your packages get delayed. Whether you’re waiting on holiday gifts to arrive so you can wrap them ahead of get-togethers, or just some goodies you bought for yourself, it’s disappointing to see your delivery date sail by without your packages in sight.
So, what happened? Well, there are a few events that likely could have delayed your package.
Sometimes, demand just outstrips the number of delivery drivers available to a delivery service. This is especially true around the holidays. Some services just can’t keep up with all of the orders flooding into their systems, which results in cascading delays.
To get out ahead of this, try to buy your items ahead of the holiday rush. If you’re waiting until December to do your shopping, the odds are good that your packages are going to get delayed!
Sometimes, packages get lost. It’s a disappointing event when it happens to you, but it happens every day. Sometimes items are just lost in the shuffle, left at processing centers, placed in the wrong mailbox, or stolen from the delivery center. Whatever the case might be, a lost package can significantly slow down delivery.
For one thing, the delivery service might not notice the package has gone missing until you bring it to their attention. Furthermore, you then need to wait for the delivery service to look for the missing item and then confirm that it is, indeed, missing. From there, it’s down the getting the original seller to ship out a replacement, a situation that can be a headache if the delivery service insists that replacing the item isn’t their financial responsibility.
Another major reason that items can be delayed in transit is due to all kinds of bad weather. This is especially true in the colder months! Heavy snowfall or bad storms can delay packages tremendously. Since most packages travel by truck, frozen or icy roads pose a major speed-bump to your packages.
Sometimes, if the weather is bad enough to ground flights, you might see your packages missing their delivery dates because they’re being shipped by air. Likewise, should the storm knock out power to a shipping facility, the packages aren’t going anywhere. The electronic systems that modern-day shipping companies use to track where items are and where they’re going just don’t work without power!
There are many other reasons why your items might be delayed, these are just some of the most common ones. Most of all, just remain patient, and try to get your holiday orders in well before the rush!
