For some reason mail delivery times have been severely delayed over the past few months, which has also been affecting my book orders. Whenever I open my mailbox nowadays, the first question on my mind is, “Where’s my book mail?” I won’t peg that on impatience either. I’m totally down with waiting a week. Two weeks are bearable. Three weeks are not cool. Four weeks are excruciating.
The Waiting Game
Latest Timeline
Take my latest order from Book Depository. I placed orders for 4 books on 25. July around 7 a.m., UK time. Here’s the timeline of those books:
Book #1
Assessment: Should not have arrived later than 8. August. Failed by 1 business day.
- Dispatch date: 28. July
- Stated time to dispatch: 2 business days
- Actual time to dispatch: 2 business days
- Arrival date: 11. August
- Stated time to arrive: 5–9 business days
- Actual time to arrive: 10 business days
Book #2
Assessment: Should not have arrived later than 8. August. Failed by 8 business days.
- Dispatch date: 29. July
- Stated time to dispatch: 2 business days
- Actual time to dispatch: 3 business days
- Arrival date: 20. August
- Stated time to arrive: 5–9 business days
- Actual time to arrive: 16 business days
Book #3
Assessment: Should not have arrived later than 8. August. Failed by 2 business days.
- Dispatch date: 30. July
- Stated time to dispatch: 2 business days
- Actual time to dispatch: 4 business days
- Arrival date: 12. August
- Stated time to arrive: 5–9 business days
- Actual time to arrive: 9 business days
Book #4
Assessment: Should not have arrived later than 11. August. Failed by 7 business days.
- Dispatch date: 30. July
- Stated time to dispatch: 3 business days
- Actual time to dispatch: 4 business days
- Arrival date: 20. August
- Stated time to arrive: 5–9 business days
- Actual time to arrive: 15 business days
Business Days Aren’t Real Time
While I’ve counted the business days because that’s what Book Depository uses to estimate delivery times, I don’t operate in business days. When I order books, I do so as a consumer, not as a business. Hence, I am not inclined to ignore weekends. It might have taken 16 business days for the second book to arrive but in reality? It took 26 days from the day I placed my order!
I particularly see this as a problem when it comes to pre-ordering books. What do I benefit from an email bearing the “good news” Book Depository is able to dispatch books before the release date if the books are dispatched after anyway? And when I pre-order, I do so because I want the book around the release date—not three weeks later when everyone and their mother has read the book already.
The Problem
The way I see it, both Book Depository and the postal services need to get their acts together. They’re capable of that, I’m sure. Two year ago I sometimes received books 2 or 3 days before the estimated arrival date. That was wonderful service. Now it’s a surprise to even see books arrive on the last estimated date of arrival.
The Book Depository
If books are dispatched a day later than the estimated time frame, that’s fine. It’s an estimation after all. But if it exceeds that, then those are very liberal estimation times stated on the websites. In fact, I ordered another book on 15. August. It was dispatched a while ago. That’s 2 business days late again because the estimate for that book is 2 business days, not 4.
Postal Services
My fury lies here. What is going on with the delivery times?! More and more deliveries are delayed and there has been no explanation for it. I understand that around Christmas and Lunar New Year, the sheer bulk of mail is impossible to deliver on time. During the rest of the year though, the conditions for operations are pretty standard. Taking almost a month to deliver parcels from the UK to Singapore makes no sense when parcels from the US arrive in less than two weeks without any problems at all. Why are distance and time inversely proportional? Logically, they should be proportional, so I just don’t get it.
I know this is an old post, but I am also currently experiencing delays in dispatching times. I have ordered books from this company since 2011 and have never once experienced any kind of delays whatsoever. However, this seems to the norm for Book Depository now, which is rather disappointing. I don’t think I will be going back. I ordered 2 books last Monday, it’s been over a week now and they still haven’t been dispatched. Contacted customer service, and they fobbed me off, making me feel like the problem instead of them. Clearly, it’s a waiting game for these guys now. Extremely disappointed with this service now.
I don’t think I would even like using TBD with that horrible shipping time. It’s not even consistent, and that’s horrible. It’s even worse knowing that you can’t buy books with faster shipping anywhere else, but also provides free shipping.
If you do want to try Amazon, I heard a rumor that they have free international shipping for holidays. I just really don’t know if that’s true.
It used to be consistent in the past. That’s why I’m wondering what happened over the past year. Amazon provides free shipping to Singapore (and Mexico) for orders above US$125 under AmazonGlobal Saver Shipping. It’s worth it for me if I want to order a lot of books in one go. Sadly, there seems to be a cap on 8 items (though the actual cap is 9kg), so I can only do that when I need to order something else that costs enough to reach that price point.
I feel so awful that I can’t empathize with you about this at all! Being in the US, our mail is pretty decent most of the time. Especially with stuff like 2-day delivery from Amazon. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much of a luxury that really is. I’m so sorry that your books are taking SO LONG to reach you!! I can’t imagine having to wait 26 days for a book. That’s horrible :(
Don’t feel awful, Miranda! Be glad you have the luxury of books being delivered to your doorstep in a very short amount of time ;)
I live in The Netherlands and some of my book depository orders take SO MUCH time. I buy my books there because it’s cheaper and the only way to get all the titles I want, but pre-ordering is just tragic and the wait can be hard.. Also strange. I ordered two books and I received one of them, but the other is still on it’s way? How? Why aren’t they packed in one package? They were dispatched the same day and time, both already available, so how is that possible..
Same here. There are so many books, particularly the German titles, that I can’t get locally, or sometimes the particular edition I want isn’t available. I’ve even seeing a lot of people who pre-ordered Lola from TBD but didn’t receive their books anywhere near the release date. I remember last year my copy of Allegiant arrived two weeks after the release date.
I don’t understand either how books that are dispatched on the same day arrive days to even a week apart. It’s strange. I understand for Amazon it depends on which warehouses books are shipped from, which is why they’e not always packaged together. But for TBD, I have no explanation for the weirdness.
I live in the Netherlands, which is like right across the sea from the UK and I have to wait usually 10 till 14 days for my books from TBD to arrive. So I wonder whether distance has anything to do with it at all. I usually don’t mind my books arriving late though, but it seems weird it takes so much time. I just don’t get why the shipping books takes so long.
Whoa. I thought the delays from TBD only affected those living in Australia and Southeast Asia. I didn’t realize that even within Europe the estimated shipping time is way off. This sucks. We order based on a certain expectation but they’re not meeting it, even though we’re not being unreasonable. Sigh.
Ugh, TBD takes forever to get my books here! Like you said, I count the days and not BUSINESS days, and I think my latest purchase took around less than two months to get here! That was a loooooong wait, and I was so frustrated. -_-
Wow! That is insanely long! The longest I’ve had to wait so far is four weeks. I’d go crazy if it took even longer than that. Yet I can’t bring myself to spend my money on two books at a bookstore if I can get three books for the same price at TBD =/ I usually buy books locally when they’re on sale or if I absolutely need a book asap for a birthday present or something. Blah.