Is The Pandemic Affecting Shipping For You?

Has anyone else noticed a slowdown in receipt of ebay purchases in the past week or so? On foreign purchases, any on domestic? I have assumed that anything from Europe I bought in the past ten days will not be here anytime soon. That is understandable; I'm simply curious.

The two items I am bidding on now from domestic sources are indicating 3 weeks or more delivery time - longer than usual. Maybe just a coincidence with these two sellers. They are in NY and CA, so maybe related to the health situation.

I and my family are isolating for now; I've been doing a lot of buying on ebay but at this point only from domestic sellers. With everything coming to a halt in much of Europe I just don't want to risk buying from there.
I posted elsewhere about a current situation with an album publisher in Germany who has apparently not shipped an order for over $300 from three weeks ago,tracking shows it as not having been handed over to DHL. I'm afraid this is typical now. Much of it is beyond the seller's control but I would expect them to notify purchasers and allow the option of cancellation.I doubt I'd get that from an ebay seller.

How soon before the USPS ceases operations fully for a few weeks? Guess i'll be getting a dumpload of negative feedback for non-delivery ;)

I have seen zero difference in timing on my most recent purchases. There are so many variables involved in total time from sale to receipt that it's impossible to correlate any short-term experience of delay to the pandemic. The seller can lie about when they shipped, a delivery vehicle could break down, an aircraft could be grounded, each causing a day or two delay. There's no way to tie any short-term perception to any specific factor.

It's highly unlikely it'll ever get to that point. Even with the recent CDC suggestion that all public gatherings of over 50 people be cancelled for the next 8 weeks. Even in a worst case scenario, grocery stores, pharmacies, banks and post offices will still be open. People will still work, factories will still be making products (assuming their supply chains haven't been disrupted) office workers will still be working, though more of them from home, if feasible. People working in restaurants, bars, hotels, travel, retail and hospitality industries will be in a world of hurt for awhile and any potential economic stimulus aimed at mitigating economic impacts need to pay a lot of attention to those sectors. Some of those types of businesses probably won't survive, unfortunately.

Royal Mail has some basic information about postto individual countries on its website. Perhaps the US has something similar?

https://personal.help.royalmail.com...ent-bulletin

No slow down for me.

A couple of lots I recently purchased were delivered within 3 days of the completion of the purchase.

4Kg Package, Hawaii to Western Australia.
Priority Mail, Tracked and Insured
Posted 11th February 2020, arrived Melbourne 3rd March (c 2 weeks)
Arrived at destination 17th March Western Australia.

Impressive.

No apparent slowdowns for me yet. Of my eight ebay purchases so far this month, six have already arrived, and one of those came from the U.K.: only seven days from purchase to delivery in California. That leaves an item that I bought only two days ago (USPS estimates delivery on Friday) and another that I bought 16 days ago. The latter is coming from the U.K. and is still well within the estimated delivery window.

I should expect Australia will have problems from late March.
I have ceased buying anything from overseas now.

Qantas and Jetstar are suspending all international flights from late March as well as cutting 60 per cent of domestic flights because of coronavirus.

The huge disruption to services also means two-thirds of Qantas and Jetstar's 30,000 employees will be temporarily stood down from late March until at least the end of May.

More than 150 aircraft have been temporarily grounded, including all of Qantas's A380s, 747s and 787-9s and Jetstar's 787-8s.

I just received last Tuesday's Royal Mail Issue. It took the usual two days across the North Sea.

There will still be international flights, but primarily for freight and to pick up EU nationals and bring them home. Otherwise, the EU closes its borders to anyone from outside the EU. It is not clear whether the UK is included or excluded, as it officially is no longer an EU member country.

Air France - KLM expects to cancel up to 90% of its flights and Lufthansa cancelled 75% a few weeks ago, before the lock-down started spreading north in Europe. The UK, Germany and the Netherlands are still not in full lock-down.

The UK is included for these purposes, as we're still in the transition period - which, despite the bluster is highly likely to be extended. All sorts of threats of some form of lockdown in London, which haven't come to fruition yet. The streets near me are pretty busy with all of the people working from home, trying to find food etc in supermarkets whose shelves are largely empty.

Received two mailings from the UK several days ago. Shipping was faster than usual.

This note appeared on the back of one of the envelopes:

In the past they used to disinfect mail for pandemics and apply some hand stamp indicating this on mail.

"In the past they used to disinfect mail for pandemics and apply some hand stamp indicating this on mail."

This has already happened in Italy. I posted an image in another thread of a recent disinfected mail.

Also the USPS is vital for many Americans as many receive medical supplies and medicine via the mail.