There are mainly three types of cross border shipment into United States as below:

1. E-packet (usually take 15 days 45 days)
2. Dedicated (usually take 7 to 15 days)
3. Express (DHL, Fedex, UPS)

Due to COVID-19 whereby logistics are heavily affected, mainly due to the reason of:

1. Limited cargo space
   Due to movement control and lockdown, limited air cargo is under operation which cause many shipments have no luck to be transported and the shipping fee is fluctuation almost every 3 days.
2. Limited manpower
   Shipments are actually not moving autonomously yet, it still required manpower to transit. Due to movement control and impact of COVID-19, there is limited manpower to handle the cargo upload and offload, custom clearance, the transportation from airport to logistics hubs, transportation between logistics hub and last mile delivery.
3. Congested transportation
   Also due to limited manpower, the on-the-road transportation is insufficient. Therefore, logistics tasks could not be completed on-time which made tasks are overloaded overtime.

AllSome has received enquiries about the tracking information and summarized for your quick reference.

The Movement of International Shipment

The above is a simple graphic showing how the package travels from origin to buyers. We are regret for current time-being, the shipments are experiencing delays at all stages.

Cargo Flight: As majority of the shipments are relying on passenger flights, the cargo space is running low due to the limitation of the number of flights traveling into United States. For shipments that failed to be scheduled for flight, it will need to wait for additional 3 – 5 days.

You may happen to see the tracking information come with “Singapore”, “”Australia”, “Hong Kong” and other country. This is because due to limited flight available, shipments had to travel to other country in order to catch another flight to route into United States as fast as possible.

Custom Clearance (in United States): Due to limited manpower, the custom clearance speed is slower than usual. Due to high overloaded volume, there is another 3 to 7 days of delays involved. Especially, if you are purchasing medical supplies and/or equipment, it will be slower as the authority is taking serious efforts for inspection.

You may potentially see also custom clearance was done in the airport which is far away from your location. The reason is because the delivery partners have assessed on the custom clearance speed and the airport was chosen based on the condition that it was the fastest airport to process the custom clearance procedures.

Inter-city Hub Transportation: Packages are sitting on the airport until the subsequent scheduled pick-up. Unfortunately, there is a long delays due to limited manpower and running trucks. The delays is ranging from 5 to 14 days.

AllSome is monitoring 10,000 shipments per day and we notice that the delivery partner in United States has made significant effort by adding in more partners and agents into the network with the hope to increase the manpower and shipment handling speed.

Last Mile Delivery (USPS/Fedex):

Once the package has been accepted by last mile delivery partner, including USPS and Fedex, it’s faster, ranging from 1 to 5 days.

The case is minimal but some buyers saw the tracking came from Fedex but finally received the shipment from USPS. The reason was because of:

1. Assigned Fedex at first to speed up the delivery. But, Fedex was overloaded and delivery partner changed to USPS. There is unfortunately a delay in between whereby the tracking information was not updated. AllSome system has been enhanced to capture the issue. Generally, you can expect the tracking number starts with ‘9’ will be delivered by USPS while tracking number starts with ‘6’ or ‘7’ will be delivered by Fedex.
2. Fedex handed deliveries to USPS. Due to limited manpower and resources, Fedex  has started to hand over shipments to USPS too.

Please find the following as the summary of the delays for your reference as below:

We are regret that the delays are involved for your shipment. During this uncertain times, your kind patience is highly appreciated. Please rest assured that AllSome is following your shipment on daily basis and taking serious efforts to ensure you received what you purchased from your trusted sellers.

Some advices

1. Choose express shipment for faster delivering experience. Usually, express shipment using DHL/Fedex/UPS take only 3-5 days. However, due to many factors, there will be delays up to 8 to 10 days. Based on our data, there is no lost shipment so far and nothing go beyond 10 days.
2. Track your parcel. Once it shows delivered, please check your mailbox, doorstep as soon as possible to avoid lost package. Should there is any issue, please do not trash your shipping labels (with tracking numbers on it) and every of your item should have a barcode at the bottom of the packaging/box. Pass the barcode to your sellers and it can help to speed up the investigation.

For any further question regarding tracking, feel free to email to AllSome at: hello@allsome.com. AllSome has setup a special unit to support both sellers and buyers to have a better shipment experience.

Please stay safe, stay healthy and stay distanced!