Origin post is preparing shipment is one of the many frustrating shipping updates you will get, as its frustrating to feel your packages are either sidelined or aren’t getting shipped on time. What could be the cause? What does origin post is preparing shipment mean? And how long do you typically see this shipping status before another update can be seen in your tracking? This article will be discussing these and more.
What Does Origin Post Is Preparing Shipment Mean?
The origin post is preparing shipment means that the originating country’s postal service has accepted the package and the information has been sent to the receiving postal service, in this case, that will be the USPS. This shipping notification will remain until your package moves through the customs from the originating country, and in few cases will remain until the United States customs or the receiving country’s customs receive and scan the package.
The “origin post is preparing shipment” shipping notification can remain for an extended period. Depending on the postal service, this is sometimes the longest shipping notification you will see before receiving your package.
Sometimes, this shipping notification is used as a catchall notification for a variety of other shipping issues, so it can get confusing to trace what could be wrong when you get this shipping notification. On our research, we noticed that the “origin post is preparing shipment” shipping status appears often when you’re shipping from China, mainly when you make purchases on Aliexpress or Alibaba, and for over a year, shipping has seen unusual delays as a result of the pandemic. So you’re best served if you just cross your fingers and expect that these packages arrive soon. What are some options that are available to you? Let’s take a look at a few tips.
Read also: What Does Departure Origin DHL Ecommerce Facility Mean?
What to do?
The first option will be just to wait. Before the pandemic, shipping with ePacket used to take between 1 and 2 weeks to the United States, but since the pandemic of 2020, shipping has slowed down seriously and you should generally expect that your order might be delayed by up to 4 or 5 weeks. That means you’ll be placing the orders and have your packages on the way longer than you were used to.
As we mentioned earlier, the origin post is preparing shipment status is a catchall notification for a variety of issues, and one of those is that it didn’t pass security checks at the customs, and might be returned to the seller. If after waiting for some time, the notification remains, you might need to contact the seller and try to resolve the issue that way.
Read also: What does DHL and FedEx Tendered to Delivery Service Provider Mean?
We would also recommend waiting things out until you notice in the Aliexpress or Alibaba app that the item is in your country, then you just use the local postal tracking system from there, either Canada Post, Royal Mail, USPS – anyone. The shipping and tracking systems in China are quite flawed, and the same is the case for most countries in Asia and Africa where you could be shipping from, so shipping notifications take quite a lot of time to update.
While you’re waiting this out, though, we want you to keep an eye on the buyer protection expiry period as this is your one chance of getting your money back should the item not get delivered. As soon as your buyer protection is expiring, contact the seller, and if they don’t respond, you can start a claim directly with Aliexpress, eBay, Amazon, or Alibaba.
In very few cases, this notification might not have changed because USPS forgot to do a scan on arrival, and what happens is that the package is already moving through the systems but the USPS is experiencing delays in updating it on their systems. As long as your buyer protection is still active, we’d recommend just waiting it out and see what happens.
Read also: What does En Route to DHL eCommerce Distribution Center mean?
