Understanding Carrier Pickups and Delivery Timelines with your 3PL
As part of our fulfillment process, we strive to ensure that your orders are processed and ready for shipment as quickly as possible. However, it's important to understand how our partnerships with carriers work to help you set accurate expectations for your customers.
Carrier Pickups and Weekend Operations
Our carrier partners, including FedEx, UPS, and USPS, pickup shipments from our warehouses near the end of the day (EOD) Monday through Friday. While our team continues to process and fulfill orders over the weekend to maintain efficiency, carriers are not guaranteed to pickup on weekends and some do not offer any pickups over the weekend. This means that any orders processed after 12PM local warehouse time on Friday will be picked up the following Monday.
- Fontana, CA: PST
- Columbus, OH: EST
- Dallas, TX: CST
- Sauk, IL: CST
How Carrier Pickups Work
Due to the high volume of orders processed daily, carriers do not scan each package individually at the time of pickup. Instead, all outgoing shipments are loaded onto Gaylord pallets and handed off to the carrier at the end of the day. These pallets are then transported to the carrier's hub, where the packages are scanned and sorted. As a result tracking updates are not immediate and vary by carrier; though they typically occur 1-2 business days after pickup when the carrier processed the shipment at their facility.
Tracking and Scanning Delays
Once a package is picked up by the carrier and assigned a tracking number, it may take 2-3 business days for the tracking information to be scanned and updated in the carrier's system. This delay is standard across most carriers and is something we do not have control over once the package leaves our facility.
During peak times, such as the holiday season, scanning delays can extend up to 1-2 weeks. While this may seem unusual, it's not uncommon for a package to arrive at its destination without being scanned at all due to the high volume of shipments passing through carriers hubs.
Setting Realistic Expectations: Were Not Amazon
It's important to remember that 3PL warehouses operation differently from companies like Amazon. While many consumers are used to two-day deliveries and instant tracking updates, we do not operation our own fleet of delivery trucks. Carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS manage pickups and deliveries, and their timelines are influenced by factors like order volume and regional capacity. Amazon, due to its size and influence, received priority from carriers during peak times.
During the holiday season, carriers allocate trucks and labor based on each warehouse's volume, not just during the peak, but over the course of the entire year. Smaller businesses or those with less shipping volume throughout the year may face slower pickups and delivery times compared to Amazon or other high-volume shippers.
Recommendations for Peak Season and Beyond
To help manage customer expectations during busy times, we strongly recommend including clear messaging to your website, at checkout, and in confirmation emails, emphasizing the potential for delays due to carrier capacity. During the holiday season, it's crucial to communicate that tracking may take longer to update and that delivery times may be extended.
Outside of peak periods, we still advise communicating that it can take 1-2 days for tracking to update once a package is picked up.
By proactively setting these expectations, you'll help reduce customer concerns and create a smoother experience during the busiest times of the year.