It depends on the vendor, the size of the order, when you placed the order (on a weekend or weekday), etc.

The Post Office, not only had major physical restructuring this season, but is also overwhelmed with the increase in Holiday
orders this season.

I didnt go deep, but for the Holidays, its around maybe 650 million pieces of mail a day.
Its amazing they do the job as well as they do.
More often is a matter of "How Fast" rather then complete failure.
It seems that dissatisfaction comes from not being fast enough.

Many people are conditioned from purchases from Amazon, 2 day delivery.
I dont think a week goes by where an email is received wondering why everyone cant deliver like Amazon.

I often remember and like to be the old fart that shares, 100 years ago, it could have taken 3-6 months to receive a hammer from Sears. 60 years ago, Montgomery Ward offered 6-8 dresses in an ad..... the entire choice for womans wear gifts.

We have so much to chose from, and are so lucky to be able to sit back and purchase, its sad sometimes
that the last issue should be delivery.

Say thanks to any UPS, Fedex, or USPS worker.....They are working there asses off this season for our stuff.

The internet has made ordering too easy. Xmas is chaos for delivery people. It's bad enough the rest of the year. Give the Post Office, Fed Ex, UPS, etc a break. They do the best they can. If you needed something sooner you should have ordered it sooner...........

Huge vendors like Amazon get several pick ups a day.

A small pinball vendor might print your label on Monday, take it to work with him Tuesday, Mail it Tuesday at 4pm - missing the 1pm pick up, your package then actually gets checked in Wednesday at 1pm.....adding 3 days to your shipment.

This.

Many times when you get the email about shipping they just printed the label, if it gets picked up that afternoon it won't actually be in its way till the next day most times.

We are a small vendor, there are exactly 2 of us running the whole show.

We guarantee every order will be fulfilled and at the post office within 24 hours.

When we order from Marco Specialties(they get 100s of orders daily) our package is usuallly packed up and and waiting for the carrier to pick it up within an hour(during biz hours). If Marco can do this when we order 100 different types of screws, rivets, nuts, clips, etc....just about any other vendor should be able to...

Amazon sets the bar high, while we cant offer same day delivery, we'll do our best to get your order to the carrier as quickly as possible.

The last couple of months, I too have noticed many a delay with USPS, for my eBay sales, as well as for items I've ordered from Amazon or elsewhere.

These packages are getting into USPS' hands promptly, but tracking shows delays, shows packages being misplaced or delayed for days (sometimes even going back & forth across the country a couple of times before successful delivery!).

Just my subjective observation as somebody who sends & receives lots of USPS items...

Thanks,
-Jason

Took two days for an order from Pinballlife go 10 miles from one post office to another.

I see tons of bizarre USPS tracking information such as my refrigerator's water filters this week: 9261299999896716545660
During past year, there have had lots more delayed orders as they rack up frequent flyer mileage to completely non-related post offices. But they still remain quite reliable as far as not losing or destroying the items.

USPS has gotten much better at actually scanning the tracking labels. Depending on how the label was printed - they often have the label print date and time, when order was picked up (or dropped off), and where the label has been.

Most foreign shipments also have done better at scanning the tracking labels as well... except for Germany. They must have the worst postal system in the world!

defiant1, welcome to Pinside. If you have not already, say hi to Pinsider Mudflaps.

News said "In store black Friday is down about 1billion this year".... "black Friday online shipping was up about 4.5billion" this year. I know I personally stayed my happy ash home and did all my shopping online.

I ordered a quad copter this year... and I just saw this from UPS FFS on a order that was suppose to arrive yesterday (Friday):

"UPS Exception Notification, Tracking Number 1****5

We have not yet unloaded the package from the trailer. This may delay delivery."

So; yeah - even UPS is understaffed.

I heard that UPS is now offering $10 per hour for seasonal helpers in the Trenton, NJ area. That's a big increase from $8 per hour 2 years ago.

I placed a couple orders from PBL a couple weeks ago USPS priority. Same deal, you can see PBL got them out on time but no tracking updates after pickup from USPS.

It's not just pinball though. I've shipped some things USPS priority that normally take 2 days (Tampa/Chicago) and they took over a week. Tis the season!