Thoughts on Amazon's shipping partners

First thing first, these are just my thoughts and personal experience so most likely than not, they are not exactly accurate. You should take this with a very tiny pinch of salt.

Amazon uses a number of shipping partners under this AmazonGlobal Saver program. They are

• DHL
• UPS
• iParcel

Sometimes (although rarely), Amazon will, for one reason or another, uses DHL Worldwide Express to get the parcel to you. This is like striking the jackpot in terms of shipping speed. Generally, the parcel will get to you in less than 4 days. Considering that the parcel has to travel half the globe, this is amazingly efficient.

Regardless of where your parcel originates, it always end up at Cincinnati, Ohio before it flies over the Pacific to us. Usually the next port of call is Incheon, South Korea and the flight time in between is more than 12 hours. The next leg is either Shenzhen, China or straight to Singapore. This leg probably takes about 9 hours. So you see, including refueling, waiting, local ground pickup and delivery, it is amazing that the parcel can get to you in less than 4 days. Once it cleared customs, you should be able to get your hands on the parcel by the next working day.

Next, iParcel. iParcel generally is able to get the parcel to you within 2 calendar weeks. It looks like iParcel's administrative office is in Carlstadt, NJ, so whatever updates you see on Amazon's website will have Carlstadt, NJ tagged to it. It is slightly different on the ground. iParcel looked like they have 3 hubs, in CA, NJ and IN. If you want to know which hub your parcel is delivered to, you can go look it up on iParcel's website.

From experience, parcels originating from CA is pretty ok while parcels coming out of NJ is slower. I might guess that the parcel from NJ could have taken a longer Europe route back while the parcels from CA took the usual Pacific route.

Once the parcels left US, you can forget about the tracking status. They are slow and just cannot be trusted. It will take about 3-5 days to reach Singapore. iParcel does not do the delivery to your doorstep themselves but sub-contracted this job to a third party. One of them is SpeedPost, the other is WMG.

What you can do is go to the SpeedPost website and key in the iParcel tracking number. If there's no result, it means the parcel has not yet reach Singapore or it's not handled by SpeedPost. If you're in luck, SpeedPost will return a positive result to indicate that SpeedPost will be the one doing the final delivery. There will be a status on the result page and there are a few possibilities.

• Empty. Probably indicates that SpeedPost has not got the physical parcel from iParcel yet.
• It says 'Pending shipment from Merchant/Shipper'. Probably means it's waiting for iParcel to hand over the parcel.
• It says 'Shipment ready'. SpeedPost has got the stuff and is ready for delivery.
• It says 'Item picked up'. It's assigned to somebody already.
• It says 'Out with delivery courier' (or something to the same effect). Well, it's on the way to you!

Your parcel might also be handled by WMG. They are located somewhere in Kallang and will also not do the delivery themselves. They will mail the parcel to you via SingPost registered mail. I wouldn't bother asking the iParcel CSO for the RA number here. Just wait and it'll show up.

Now, let's talk about the last shipping partner, UPS. Amazon uses 2 types of services offered by UPS. They are UPS Worldwide Express Saver (aka UPS FAST) and UPS Worldwide Expedited (aka UPS SLOW). Judging from the nicknames given, I'm sure you know which one you want.

There's nothing much to say about UPS FAST. It's similar to DHL and will deliver the parcel to you in less than 4 days. The record I experienced is 2.5 days (minus away the TZ difference) from Amazon's warehouse and my doorsteps.

UPS SLOW will be the one most of us will be getting, other than iParcel. Amazon must have felt that iParcel will do a faster job because the delivery estimates for UPS SLOW is always longer than iParcel. All action for UPS starts at Louisville, KY. UPS FAST took a few hours to get there while UPS SLOW can take days.

But once it reaches Louisville, KY, then it's pretty much predictable. It will go to Anchorage, and then maybe Incheon or Hong Kong and finally Singapore.

Once in Singapore, UPS FAST will deliver the parcel to you on the next available business day. For UPS SLOW, it is claimed that the parcel will be delivered only from Tues-Thur. I know this is not true since I have had UPS SLOW delivering on a slow Friday afternoon. But whatever it is, UPS SLOW has a lower priority but rest assured that it will still be delivered.

How do I tell which UPS I have? If your tracking number starts with 1Z240F5, then you have got UPS SLOW.

Can I choose the carrier? Of course you can. But you must forget about what I taught you in the tutorial and pick priority shipping when you check out. You will definitely get DHL or UPS FAST.

PS : There was once when iParcel actually handed my parcel over to DHL in Elizabeth, NJ and DHL got it to me in 3 days.

PPS : If you can't wait, please then either buy locally (and get the item on the spot) or pay for priority shipping where you'll get DHL or UPS FAST. Please do not agree to use the free saver option and bitch about slow delivery.