Jonathan Kamens 86 47May 11, 2025
Two anecdotes about the state of retail shipping in the U.S. I'm not sure what to make of them except that things are Not Normal…
We order pet stuff from Chewy every 3–4 weeks. I looked back 6 months; every previous order arrived either 1 or 2 days after it was shipped (via FedEx). But our current order was shipped 6 days ago, was supposed to arrive yesterday, and still hasn't arrived.
They had to ship it from across the country. I'm guessing their nearer warehouse has run out of stuff.
🧵
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47May 11, 2025
I ordered a replacement watch band from Garmin. It was shipped via USPS, starting in Kansas on May 5. It was supposed to arrive May 9. Then it was supposed to arrive May 10. It still hasn't arrived. It left PA early this morning, so who knows, maybe it'll get here tomorrow.
🧵
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47May 11, 2025
I have two (contradictory) theories.
Either:
a) everybody's ordering a ton of stuff to get in front of the tariffs, so all the shipping companies are overwhelmed; or
b) orders have dried up so shipping trucks are getting held up until they're full enough to be worth dispatching.
There are probably other factors in play, such as the fact that given the precarious state of everything, any large business like FedEx or USPS is constantly on the edge of cascading failure. 🤷
🧵/fin
Show threadLemniscateMay 11, 2025
@jik I’ve noticed some things I’ve had shipped recently being routed oddly by USPS. Going to places the mail bound here doesn’t normally go through and taking longer. And there were at least a couple of packages that reached the city they do before being sent to my town that got to it and then were sent further away before coming back to that city again and finally up here. Generally, a bunch of behavior I haven’t seen before and I’ve been watching shipping routes closely for years due to some very localized delivery problems that started a while back.
Show threadFaraiwe

@Lemniscate @jik

Ordered something from Pennsylvania. I am in NE Florida. ETA of item, 5days.

Total actual time: 16days. Item came to NE Florida, then went to Central Florida, then went to SW Florida, THEN ONTO PUERTO RICO, hung around there for five days, then sender called and bitched at them, then item went to Central Florida then to NE Florida.

Yup, DeJoy.

May 11, 2025 at 4:36pmWeb
Show threadNKTMay 12, 2025
@faraiwe @Lemniscate @jik If they let it keep working nicely, people would be against selling it for profit. If they fuck it right up, they can strip it for parts and sell the bits and claim "it'll improve" (it won't improve)