China Postal has received official notice from USPS regarding this year's holiday rush. USPS has officially started the holiday rush season starting end of October.

Here are a few important things that US buyers may want to pay attention to during this peak season:

1. Plan your purchase plenty time ahead if your order is time sensitive. USPS normal delivery time is up to 12 business days with occational delay. However, during holiday rush season, USPS has a 60% higher rate of delay, which means more international airmails arrive late rather than on time. From our past years experiences, we've encounted a few times every year that USPS could be up to 45 days late on top of the regular delivery time.

2. We ship all orders out on time within the handling time we stated. So please make sure you submit all necessary order information (i.e., CORRECT color choice) to ensure we can get your order shipped on time.

3. Once an order is shipped, it's no longer in our control how fast USPS will make the delivery to you. We make sure all packages left our custom on time (usually in 1-3 days). In the past years, China Postal never had a single case of delay that is caused at their end. However, USPS is a US federal service which is not in our control. So please understand if USPS is having the delay, there is nothing we can do.

4. USPS online tracking is not up to date at this time. USPS has informed China Postal that they stopped updating their online tracking information for international packages as detailed as they normally do since end of October due to the large volume of shipments they're processing right now. They simply said they don't have time to update online records.

You will most likely to see one of the two following records below. It's taking place for 99% of the packages right now. Do not panic if you see the same information for days or weeks, because USPS simply stops updating it and does not mean it is not being processed further.

"Your item arrived in the United States in ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS) at xxx PM on MM/DD/YYYY. Information, if available, is updated periodically throughout the day. Please check again later."

Even if it says USPS will update throughout the day, they actually don't. If you see this information, that means YOUR PACKAGE HAS BEEN RELEASED FROM US CUSTOM IN NY AND IS NOW IN CUSTODY OF USPS. ISC (International Service Center) NY is a unit of USPS, it is not a unit of custom.

"We have received notice that the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece."

Please keep in mind, the "originationg post" is referring to the origin post unit in USA, not referring to the origin China Postal unit that accepted the shipment. US origin post is the very first USPS unit which handles all oversea shipments when the plane landed on US continent. When you see the above record, it means YOUR PACKAGE HAS ARRIVED IN USA, UNLOADED OFF THE PLANE AND TAKEN OVER BY ORIGINATING USPS POST UNIT FOR DOMESTIC HANDLING.

So when you check with your lcoal USPS staff, if whoever tells you it's stuck at custom, it is UNTRUE as he/she simply doesn't even know which federal service ISC belongs to. If whoever tells you the package is still in China, it is UNTRUE because the origin post unit is based on US continent. Please remember, you may see these information for all time until delivered successfully (sometimes a few days after delivered). Even when the package has arrived at your local unit and has been made unsuccessful delivery attempts with pickup notice left for you, you will still see online record says it arrived in ISC NY USPS on a certain date and time, or still says origin post is preparing for shipment. So basically, USPS online information is very much unhelpful. Our suggestions are:

***Watch out for delivery when getting close to ETA. Keep an eye on pick up notice left by USPS if they missed you for the delivery. It's most of the time left in your mailbox or slip through the door.

***Give it a few extra days for delay before you check with USPS. Do not rely on USPS online information, but also check with your local delivery PO over the counter or at least via the phone. Make sure you contact the correct branch which is the one delivering your daily mail.

***Have your local PO staff look for the package under the tracking # within their local unit (either physical location or in their local unit inside system). If they say it's not there yet, don't be panic if the staff interpretes USPS online information based on his/her own understanding. (We've experienced a few cases just in the past week that USPS staff gave personal explanation that's totally wrong.) Please contact us for professional suggestion on this matter during this special peak time.

If you still have other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

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