What is the Linehaul Office?

[Miti]

WTF is the linehaul office?
I ordered something from AliExpress on Dec 05, it arrived at the linehaul office on Dec 20th, it was delivered to the last mile carrier on Dec 29 and from there… black hole.
It took 15 days to get from China to Toronto and 8 weeks to get lost in the black hole. It passed the due date of Feb 5, IIRC, I opened a case with AliExpress and I’ve got a refund. However, I have another two packages with the last mile carrier that sit there since Jan 29 and Feb 03. How long does it take the last mile carrier to deliver in the same city?

I’m boiling!

[jpanhalt]

Saw the same thing a few weeks ago  The "line haul" is the carrier that takes the package over a great distance.  In the case of AliExpress, that is probably the carrier that takes the package from China/HongKong to a Western  or European country.

In my very limited experience, it is faster than USPS/affiliates  can deliver from Chicago, IL or New Jersey to my home in Cleveland, OH or less than 1000 miles.

You can always complain to your local postal service.

[thm_w]

Please edit out your political BS, no one cares about it here.

Next time pay a few more cents for aliexpress standard shipment instead of super economy or cainiao, and your stuff will show up faster.

[oPossum]

sorting/distribution center

[jpanhalt]

From a usually reliable source,

If your AliExpress order has the status “Arrived at Line-haul Office” or “Received by Line-haul Office,” it means your package is at a transportation hub, where it will be sorted and delivered to an air, land, or sea shipping carrier. There, it will be loaded onto a truck or plane that will ship it to your country.Jan 21, 2024

[Miti]

Please edit out your political BS, no one cares about it here.

Next time pay a few more cents for aliexpress standard shipment instead of super economy or cainiao, and your stuff will show up faster.

Looks like you do care.

[Miti]

Saw the same thing a few weeks ago  The "line haul" is the carrier that takes the package over a great distance.  In the case of AliExpress, that is probably the carrier that takes the package from China/HongKong to a Western  or European country.

It shows as it is in TO when it gets to the linehaul office.

[Kosmic]

I had the same issue lately. I always took the cheapest shipping option on aliexpress and shipping took normally around 1 month max. Sometimes better.

But now it get stuck somewhere (if tracking is right it's in Canada), the due date expire on aliexpress and I end up receiving the package via Canada Post 1 months later (3 months total).

[mwb1100]

Don't know exactly what it is, but in my limited experience a package can be in the "arrived at linehaul office" anywhere from a couple days to several weeks.

I'd guess it's something like a warehouse full of carts/pallets with packages in them, and how long yours is there depends on the luck of the draw on when your cart gets pulled for someone to toss the packages from the cart to some conveyor belt.

[amyk]

Try a different tracking site. Sometimes they can find the "next hop" tracking number, but all the information you've shown so far suggests that it's already arrived in Canada.

In my experience: fastest shipping from Ali around late Oct to mid Nov just before the holidays, and slowest from that point up to around mid Feb when the holiday queues have finally drained.

[cosmicray]

In the USA, small light packages inbound from China are generally handled by a 3rd party shipper until it reaches the nearest USPS network distribution center (where it is injected into the mailstream at the lowest rate available, typically zone 1 rates). So the bulk movement is at the leisure of the truckers / airlines / railroads who move bulk freight. This time of year, it is quite possible for which ever freight handler involved to have containers stuck in the snow. It happened to me about 15 years back when I sent a package from Florida to Alberta. When it left USPS's control, it vanished. One very sharp local postmaster (who had previously worked in USPS logistics) was able to determine that the missing package was sitting in a ULD at the Toronto airport (which was closed due to a blizzard).

[Miti]

I had the same issue lately. I always took the cheapest shipping option on aliexpress and shipping took normally around 1 month max. Sometimes better.

But now it get stuck somewhere (if tracking is right it's in Canada), the due date expire on aliexpress and I end up receiving the package via Canada Post 1 months later (3 months total).

Same here. I ordered many things from Aliexpres and I had a package in 2022 that didn't come, all the rest were ok. This year I received 2 items out of 5 that I ordered.

[Miti]

One very sharp local postmaster (who had previously worked in USPS logistics) was able to determine that the missing package was sitting in a ULD at the Toronto airport (which was closed due to a blizzard).

Toronto again!   

[jpanhalt]

I was almost arrested in Toronto (I was detained in a holding area at the airport, but not in jail per se) for trying to enter illegally with a group of 3 others who had passports  Fortunately, I was leading that team.  We were there to visit a vendor in Etobicoke for a $5 million purchase (1990's dollars).   The Customs officials wanted me to have a work permit, as it was not just a visit.  I volunteered to get on the next flight back to the US.  After quite a delay, they let me visit. The vendor didn't get the sale.

I have had no problems with AliExpress and have received every item ordered.  However, the cheapest shipping is slow in both countries, particularly in the US.   SpeedPak has been quite fast on the China side, but once it gets to the US (Pitney Bowels), it takes forever.  UPS is only slightly better.  With either carrier, the package waits for days either at the point of entry (Chicago or New Jersey) or in a suburb of Columbus.  Regular mail between Columbus and Cleveland is fairly quick.

Digole apparently ships from Canada or China.  A small item from Canada took almost as long as a shipment from China.  In other words, it seems to me delays are mostly on our side of the Pacific.

[Miti]

I was almost arrested in Toronto (I was detained in a holding area at the airport, but not in jail per se) for trying to enter illegally with a group of 3 others who had passports  Fortunately, I was leading that team.  We were there to visit a vendor in Etobicoke for a $5 million purchase (1990's dollars).   The Customs officials wanted me to have a work permit, as it was not just a visit.  I volunteered to get on the next flight back to the US.  After quite a delay, they let me visit. The vendor didn't get the sale.

"How to lose 5 million dollars because of a customs dumbfuck". Manual proudly printed in Canada.

[tunk]

You could see if https://parcelsapp.com/ provides more detailed info.
For ebay orders it often does.

[Stray Electron]

I was almost arrested in Toronto (I was detained in a holding area at the airport, but not in jail per se) for trying to enter illegally with a group of 3 others who had passports  Fortunately, I was leading that team.  We were there to visit a vendor in Etobicoke for a $5 million purchase (1990's dollars).   The Customs officials wanted me to have a work permit, as it was not just a visit.  I volunteered to get on the next flight back to the US.  After quite a delay, they let me visit. The vendor didn't get the sale.

   I never came close to getting arrested but one time they almost denied me entry into Canada.  Back in the days (early 1980s) when you weren't required to have a passport to travel between Canada and the US I made a lot of trips back and forth but on one particular trip, Canadian Immigration decided that I needed a work permit, which I didn't have. I let the girl at the airport immigration rant and rave for a bit and then took out my Canadian birth certificate and showed her that I was in, fact, a Canadian citizen even though I carried a US id. Then she became FURIOUS that I hadn't told her that to begin with. I simply looked at her and said "Well you never asked. The DND was not happy to hear that immigration had tried to keep me out of the country and they made sure that it NEVER happened again.  We set up a new aerospace company in Canada and then sold them $36 Million in military Electro-Optics. I eventually spent nearly two years there getting the new company up to speed. I made friends with a lot of the locals in Quebec and I had a grand time up there.

[thm_w]

Looks like you do care.

Read before posting: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-rules-please-read/

[Miti]

Looks like you do care.

Read before posting: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-rules-please-read/

Chill out man, there was no political intention in this post and nobody, other than you, saw it that way. I was just looking for a possible explanation to the multiple parcels that disappeared in a black hole after reaching Canada in relatively short time. It was just a rant.
And to show, NOT YOU but Dave and the moderators, that there was no political intention, I removed that. I hope this makes you happy.

[Simon]

carrier services are generally awful. Any time the carrier changes during the shipment it is as good as lost. In the UK royal fail do tracked and signed abroad with insurance, you pay for this service thinking that if anything goes wrong you are covered only to find that what they mean is that it is covered so long as they have it in the UK, as soon as they hand it to Parcel Farce to export at the airport it's over and if it is lost it is lost, nothing you can do. I am now trying to use carriers like UPS for america so that when it goes missing they are accountable as they carry it from start to finish.

[Miti]

This is something new in Toronto, or maybe Canada, or maybe just for me. From Jan 2020 until Oct 2023 I’ve ordered 71 items and all of them with one exception showed up in a reasonable time, whether it was Cainiao or another shipping method. Starting Dec 2023 I have received 2 out of 6 orders, none of them with Cainiao. And they seem to be in TO. It’s a local issue.

[soldar]

If it makes you feel any better it is just as bad in Spain. About 1/3 of my orders from China get "lost" after arriving in Spain. Tracking shows them being handed over to Spanish Post Office and then they disappear. Just today I got a refund for some fuse-holders that arrived in Madrid on January 22 and promptly disappeared. Like magic!.

I do not want a refund because I have to reorder. I want my stuff. Whoever keeps them might think a small package contains something valuable but will be disappointed to find electronic parts they have no use for.

[thm_w]

This is something new in Toronto, or maybe Canada, or maybe just for me. From Jan 2020 until Oct 2023 I’ve ordered 71 items and all of them with one exception showed up in a reasonable time, whether it was Cainiao or another shipping method. Starting Dec 2023 I have received 2 out of 6 orders, none of them with Cainiao. And they seem to be in TO. It’s a local issue.

What was the service if it wasn't Cainiao/ultra economy/aliexpress saver? Sometimes they will not show the actual carrier and just put "free shipping", but you can check the tracking after the fact.

Low postage shipments have been slow on and off for the past 5+ years in Canada, usually CBSA related: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/mail-processing-canada-customs-slow-711375/

Consider before you order, is waiting 20 more days worth $1? Or do I actually need this part.
Also if you can, order multiple items at the same time to be upgraded to combined standard shipment.

[Simon]

You have to remember that when you buy something from china it is your nominated postal service that have to deliver it for free, that is partly how the cheap/free shipping works. I buy something from china, the put it on a plane to the UK, from there it is Royal Fail that have to deliver at their expense, they are not paid. every country and I think the US/canada, works like this. So long as people ship between these countries it averages, but who sends lots of little packets to china? no one, so this cause added costs to local postal services that they are not reimbursed for so you bet they could not care less.

[soldar]

The postal service of the sending country pays to the postal service of the receiving country a fee, called "terminal due", for delivery.  There exist also "transit charges" and other charges. This is regulated by the Universal Postal Union.

https://www.upu.int/en/postal-solutions/programmes-services/remuneration/about-upu-remuneration

https://www.upu.int/en/Postal-Solutions/Programmes-Services/Remuneration/Terminal-dues

The UPU remuneration system for letters and small packets, known as terminal dues, ensures that the designated operator of the destination country is compensated for the costs associated with the handling, transporting and delivering of the postal items it receives from the sending designated operator.

Terminal dues system

The current methodology for the terminal dues system was established by the 2016 Congress and is applicable for the 2018–2021 period. It places countries in tiered groups and applies different rates based on postal development indexes (see country classification), with the goal of moving all countries into a single rate system. Rates also vary according to item format, with a different rate structure for small and large letters versus bulky letters containing documents and small packets containing goods.

The Wikipedia article on the UPU has much information about terminal dues, their history, how they are assessed and implemented, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union

[cosmicray]

The postal service of the sending country pays to the postal service of the receiving country a fee, called "terminal due", for delivery.  There exist also "transit charges" and other charges. This is regulated by the Universal Postal Union.

That is correct, but only when the letter/parcel is entirely handled by the postal services of the various countries involved.

What began this thread, the Linehaul Office, is about doing things at a scale and at a pre-sort, that the sender can handle it to the last possible USPS injection point before final delivery. That is typically a USPS facility called a Network Distribution Center (which for my address, the NDC is in Jacksonville FL). The other part of this story (which also bypasses the UPU narative) is that very high volume shippers can get negotiated rates. Those negotiated contract rates are confidential, only USPS and the shipper know what they are. What is happening here is that the shipper has (almost certainly aggressive) negotiated rates for USPS zones 1 and 2, which should cover all last mile handling of the items (between the NDC and the destination address). In other words, USPS is not hauling on their long haul transportation network, the shipper is. The (typically small) parcels are very likely being pre-sorted in CN, prior to departure, so that when they land in the US, all that has to be done is a bulk cargo movement, from the port of entry to the destination NDC. USPS accepts the bulk shipment, then dumps it into their sorting system, for final delivery.

I can now report that my first AliExpress order has arrived at the Linehaul Office 

[soldar]

The postal service of the sending country pays to the postal service of the receiving country a fee, called "terminal due", for delivery.  There exist also "transit charges" and other charges. This is regulated by the Universal Postal Union.

That is correct, but only when the letter/parcel is entirely handled by the postal services of the various countries involved.

What began this thread, the Linehaul Office, is about doing things at a scale and at a pre-sort, that the sender can handle it to the last possible USPS injection point before final delivery. That is typically a USPS facility called a Network Distribution Center (which for my address, the NDC is in Jacksonville FL). The other part of this story (which also bypasses the UPU narative) is that very high volume shippers can get negotiated rates. Those negotiated contract rates are confidential, only USPS and the shipper know what they are. What is happening here is that the shipper has (almost certainly aggressive) negotiated rates for USPS zones 1 and 2, which should cover all last mile handling of the items (between the NDC and the destination address). In other words, USPS is not hauling on their long haul transportation network, the shipper is. The (typically small) parcels are very likely being pre-sorted in CN, prior to departure, so that when they land in the US, all that has to be done is a bulk cargo movement, from the port of entry to the destination NDC. USPS accepts the bulk shipment, then dumps it into their sorting system, for final delivery.

Fine but the point is that it is just not true that any national post office is working for free for any foreign post office. The USPS can negotiate and accept last mile delivery with big volume shippers and it does not care who they are or where the stuff originates. Presorted mail has been a thing for many decades. Now anyone can approach the USPS and ask how much they would charge to deliver a container full of small mail and packages located in the last mile delivery area. The USPS does not know or care if the stuff originates inside or outside the USA and is just doing the delivery. Probably most of those containers have mixed domestic and imported things.

A single individual shipping a single packet from one country to another is going to pay a much higher rate than an organization which ships packets by the many thousands, presorts them, etc. It is just an economy of scale.

In Spain I receive orders from eBay and each time they seem to come a different way. Sometimes they take longer, sometimes they arrive fast. Shipping consolidators are continuously shopping around. When there is extra space that could go empty they can buy that space for very little. Sometimes they have to wait. Sometimes they pay more. Sometimes they ship via Amsterdam, sometimes via other places. There is no conspiracy. There is no cheating. it is a matter of supply and demand at each given moment.  Just like air fares. Nobody seems to understand why it might cost more to fly from A to B than if you buy a ticket to fly from A to C with a stopover in B. To the layperson it makes no sense but to the airlines it must make sense. Just because you do not understand something does not mean there is anything nefarious going on.

So eBay import a container load of small stuff into the USA or the EU and then they contract with the local post office or somebody else to deliver it. I cannot see anything wrong. They've paid their way.

ETA: Now that I think about it for a moment, it seems the packets that got lost were shipped by orangeconnex.com direct to Madrid and lost on arrival. I have a tracking number from orangeconnex all the way to Madrid but that is the end and they just say they handed it to the Spanish Post Office, Correos, but cannot give me a Spanish tracking number and Correos says without a Spanish tracking number they cannot do anything. I have had several packets lost this way. But I receive those that were reshipped from Netherlands or other places. Hmmm, I am detecting a pattern I had not noticed before.

[5U4GB]

I have had no problems with AliExpress and have received every item ordered.  However, the cheapest shipping is slow in both countries, particularly in the US.   SpeedPak has been quite fast on the China side, but once it gets to the US (Pitney Bowels), it takes forever.  UPS is only slightly better.  With either carrier, the package waits for days either at the point of entry (Chicago or New Jersey) or in a suburb of Columbus.  Regular mail between Columbus and Cleveland is fairly quick.

That seems to be common here too, there's regular updates as it travels across China, is exported there, arrives at the linehaul office here, and then sits... and sits... and sits... no updates, nothing, and then eventually it's "Transferred to local depot" and then out for delivery.  Often the time it sits in the local linehaul office is longer than the entire time from some factory in China to here.

In general, the local courier services are pretty terrible, I've had stuff delivered from the US faster than from the next big city a few hundred km away.

[5U4GB]

I was almost arrested in Toronto (I was detained in a holding area at the airport, but not in jail per se) for trying to enter illegally with a group of 3 others who had passports  Fortunately, I was leading that team.  We were there to visit a vendor in Etobicoke for a $5 million purchase (1990's dollars).   The Customs officials wanted me to have a work permit, as it was not just a visit.  I volunteered to get on the next flight back to the US.  After quite a delay, they let me visit. The vendor didn't get the sale.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine, he was invited in by a government department to advise them on some complex technical issue.  After the cr*p Canadian customs put him through he was sorely tempted to advise them to pursue a path that would cost them ten times what it should have.  In any case he swore he'd never have anything to do with providing any services to Canada again.

That's just one of the many horror stories I've heard about Canadian customs.  Are they really that bad, or do you just not hear the stories from other countries?

[soldar]

That seems to be common here too, there's regular updates as it travels across China, is exported there, arrives at the linehaul office here, and then sits... and sits... and sits... no updates, nothing, and then eventually it's "Transferred to local depot" and then out for delivery.  Often the time it sits in the local linehaul office is longer than the entire time from some factory in China to here.

In general, the local courier services are pretty terrible, I've had stuff delivered from the US faster than from the next big city a few hundred km away.

I have to wonder if the tardiness in the last mile delivery in cheap items from China has to do with the cheap prices paid in the agreements. In other words, it could be that the last shipping company gets paid a very low price and, in exchange, the agreement is "you pay me low price and I'll get to it whenever I get to it". That way they can do their more urgent (and better paid) deliveries with priority and then get around to the cheap stuff whenever they can.

[cosmicray]

First Aliexpress order arrived today (test leads with very sharp points). Nine days from order date to delivery.

[cosmicray]

Something else I discovered about Aliexpress this morning ... items listed for sales are either shipped by Aliexpress or the seller is a Global shipper. This is not obvious on the item listing, but shows up when the item is added to the shopping cart (Global Shipping items sort to the top, fulfillment by Aliexpress below that). The test leads I received at 9 days were shipped to me from Miami. So I'm suspicious that there may be an Aliexpress fulfillment warehouse there.

Most of the sellers offering ICs, seem to be Global shippers, which makes sense if they have to go cut your IC order off a reel, then pack it for shipment. Test leads are more of a single unit item.

[pcprogrammer]

The linehaul office, that is the place where your packages from aliexpress get lost when they don't have fast delivery like the 10 day delivery service. Sometimes you have to buy for more then 10 euro to get this. Your orders will then, if possible, be combined into a single package and indeed mostly arrive within the given time frame.

I have two outstanding orders which despite of being ordered together with other things did not classify and might never arrive. One of them is waiting to pas customs for 6 days already, and the other was due for today, but doubt if it is in the mail box. Ordered it on December 30th 2023, so two months have gone by. Have to wait yet another month before I can ask for a refund.

Nothing big though. Just some ic's and diodes.

For a next order I will look for sellers that offer the 10 day delivery. Might be a bit more expensive. Or use the "choice" option and then get free delivery upgrade by spending 10 euro or more.

[soldar]

Well, whadayaknow, today I received an item I had ordered back in September and was refunded three months ago. I had already ordered again, received and used so I no longer need it. It is just some capacitors and very low value.  I feel bad for the seller but it is probably not worth the trouble for me to offer partial payment. I am going to think about it.

[5U4GB]

I've had that as well, offered to pay the seller and they declined saying that since I didn't get it in time there was no obligation to pay.  So it doesn't hurt to offer.