Shout out to businesses that email tracking information and link to their own systems instead of the package delivery service’s tracking system. These third party tracking site plug-ins often lag behind the information provided to them by the delivery service’s site.
Special shout out to those who hide tracking information behind a required account login when they could simply provide the tracking number in the email.
Most special shout out to sites that do not allow you to know anything about a particular order unless you click through to their site and log in. It makes tracking past orders a nightmare.
Hat-tip to the motherfuckers who mark something as shipped as soon as they generate a tracking number, even though it may not be in the carrier’s hands for days.
I had a package from Loop Ear Protection that did this and didn’t ship for a month. They also don’t have customer service and only an AI chat bot that condescendingly kept telling me that the package was shipped. Isn’t life grand?
I’ve avoided ordering from Loop after reading similar reports. I’d considered getting some of their ear plugs to try, but now I would just try something generic from AliExpress. If it’s not going to show up for a month, it may as well be super cheap.
Probably the same thing with branding on it anyways.
My side business is a transportation management system (TMS) that communicates with shipping carriers. Because I got so frustrated with this exact problem I developed a series of “hacks” so that when this happens customers don’t actually see it marked shipped until someone confirms it.
It’s very annoying but I think it’s worth it to convey accurate information. A lot of misunderstandings and pissed off customers come from shitty tracking APIs. My other favorite is “out for delivery” when it’s not; they don’t want to get in trouble for delivering it late but by lying to people you’ve just pissed them off even more.
I’ve had more than a few Out for Delivery shipments that take two days or Undeliverable, No One Home when I’ve been home with dogs who tell me when a bird farts so yeah. Those deliver folks are overworked and underpaid but heck it is frustrating.