What sort of steps should be taken to track down a package lost in transit?

It's been over 3 weeks, nearing a month since an order was shipped out to me via economy mail from France. I've dealt with the label many times before so I can confirm their reliability, and for this reason they will remain unnamed because they are definitely not rip-offs, however I'm wondering what means I should approach to trying to find out what happened to the package, especially if it does not arrive in the next couple weeks.

I chose the cheap shipping without registration as it's never failed me thus far. However, I've lately come to realize that non-registered packages coming from the EU, and France as well have been getting lost. However it could also be the possible delay given the holidays and non-business days. It could also be i've only ordered tapes/CD's from this label in the past, and for the first time ordered some LP's since they were the cheapest i could find them anywhere, wondering if this may have caused it to get held up in customs. I've had smaller packages get held in customs when I've shipped out of the country myself in trades and sales I've done, much less 4 slabs of vinyl records.

I'm just wondering what people to get in touch with other than the label owner. He told me it's been shipped already, and given my shipping options there's not a whole lot that can be done on his end, though I will inquire with him as well, but i mean who should I be sending the calls to? It could be lost in the french post, or in the US post, or somewhere in limbo. Without a tracking number or registration of the package, it's not exactly easy to account for. I just hope I can find out what's going on. A $60 package being lost is not my idea of fun, but I guess when you do a lot of mailorder, it's bound to happen at some point.

Usually, that kind of shipping to/from europe is an average of 4-6 weeks, so i think you would get it anytime

Currently postal service over the oceans is extremly slow. And that goes for both directions due to the Christmas overkill.

E.g. a lot of parcels go in Frankfurt through the custom service, this is one of the bottlenecks. All parcels (=100%) from Southamerica that land in Frankfurt go through custom service/drugcheck, despite that they should be delivered to e.g Spain or the UK. Everything passes through this single scanner-check on the airport first. And the boxes full of shit are waiting since weeks there to be checked.

If sending registered from Germany or Europe to the US, you have a number. However, an investigation takes weeks as this is no tracking system. and no online-mirroring is possible, where your parcel is located. This is just a "arrived/not arrived" check after some months.


Use a tracking number by taking DHL or Hermes for Germany as an example as a postal service for shipping to the US. Then you really have a on-time tracking, sometimes even with webpage-check were your parcel is currently located. However => That are costs that equal a baseball-stick up your ass unfortunately...

Don't worry, I'm now three weeks waiting for a couple of CDs to arrive from the US also. Guess the holydays resulted in an extra slowness.

there's literally nothing you can do. Hopefully it comes soon, but if it doesn't...it doesn't.

I figured that given the holidays should wait longer. As for the 4-6 weeks, I've usually received shipments from france rather promptly, within a 2-3 week span. This is the longest wait from anywhere in Europe in a very long time with a previous package arriving around the second week of December right at the beginning of the holiday rush from France. It's a somewhat large package though being LP's, i guess i'll give it a few more weeks before I really start to express concern.

I order a lot of stuff from Record Shop X in Finland, Nailboard in Estonia and from Amazon-UK and their various partners. The quickest delivery I've seen (from Europe to the USA) is 10 days; and I don't think anything has taken much longer than two weeks; though I haven't tried stress-testing them by ordering during the Christmas season.

Time spent going through customs may also be a factor during the Christmas season. I don't know if the customs guys hire more temporary staff for the occasion. During normal times, stuff I get from CD Japan spends two or three days on the West Coast clearing customs. (I get their fancy shipping. This provides on-line tracking through customs on both sides of the border.)

I just received some shirts and a hoodie that I ordered more than a month ago today.

Sometimes it takes more than a while, and if you are ordering a lot of stuff then the distro or the shop you're ordering from should insure the package.