Concur with Dave Stevens' comments.
First, let me state clearly we are
not the vendor in question.
But as a vendor, we have considerable experience with shipping internationally and have some thoughts we'd like to share.
We completely recognize that international shipment delays are extremely frustrating for customers. And lack or any response from the vendor or otherwise poor communication from the vendor is very unprofessional and exasperating for the customer.
We ship internationally daily except on Sundays and holidays. Most shipments arrive to customers overseas relatively quickly, within a week or so. But not all. International shipping delays and tracking information errors are unfortunately common. During COVID, they were crippling and for a short time, we had to stop shipping overseas (now resumed).
Once a package is in the hands of the shipping carrier or is being held by customs officials in the receiving country for inspection, there is absolutely nothing we as the vendor can do to hurry things along or correct tracking information in systems we have no access to, and very little we can do to resolve any other shipping problems while the package is in transit.
For example, we recently had a customer in Australia wait 8 weeks for a package we shipped from our workshop in the USA, a very unusual event for a shipment to Oz. Normal delivery to Oz is 2 weeks. When our very patient and understanding customer finally received the package, it had been marked as held by Australian customs officials and opened for a biosecurity inspection. Such extra inspection scrutiny cannot be predicted or compensated for by us in another country on another continent. See photos.
In the event a package goes missing, the only things we can do as a vendor are 1) initiate a lost package search request with the shipping carrier, and if the package appears to be truly lost, 2) refund the customer or if the customer prefers, 3) replace the lost products and reship to the customer at our expense.
We do recognize that unscrupulous vendors do exist. When buying internationally, we recommend using a secure payment method such as PayPal so that you as the customer are protected. Services like PayPal and credit card issuers can quickly refund your money if the vendor is not meeting obligations.
Please note that in our experience, in nearly all instances post-COVID, the missing package was not truly lost, just delayed, and after an uncomfortable amount of time the package was in fact delivered to the customer. We do sincerely regret when these frustrating and concerning delays occur.
We recently had a customer in Europe grow impatient that his order had not arrived within 2 weeks after shipping, despite tracking information stating that the package had arrived in his country, and us asking international customers to allow 8 weeks for unusual delivery conditions like the one experienced by our Australian customer. He demanded replacements be sent immediately. We honored his demand at my family's expense. 3 days after we shipped the replacements, the original package was successfully delivered to the customer, 17 days after we shipped it. 14-21 days shipping to Europe is normal. The customer received the replacement models a week after that, which was faster than normal.
Because international shipping can be occasionally chaotic and somewhat unpredictable, we ask our international customers to allow up to 8 weeks for unusual delivery conditions before requesting a refund or replacements.
We're not trying to be difficult or unreasonable. We're trying to be realistic. Affordable international shipping is not a perfect process. Most of the time, the process works well. But sometimes, things go wrong in transit and packages get delayed. We very much regret that we can't make the process better.
