International Mail Lost Mouthpiece

[trombonejb]

How often do you ship a mouthpiece (or any other trombone part) internationally and it just disappears off the face of the earth en route to its destination for no reason?

I shipped my old mouthpiece to a customer in Ireland a month ago and it has not turned up anywhere since it departed Iceland over 3 weeks ago.

[Vegasbound]

It happens, there are countries where it seems to happen a lot more than others!

FYI, I stopped selling anything to Italy for that reason

[Doug Elliott]

You may get it back eventually - maybe a month or two.

[harrisonreed]

There is a global shipping crisis going on right now. The cheapest options for shipping wind up on a boat, and the boat just sits anchored in the port.

[Burgerbob]

I had a horn shipped to me from Switzerland. It took 3+ months to get to me in Washington State.

[DougHulme]

It does happen and it is often 'by chance' but most often (to the UK) it does eventually turn up. The UK system is random because it depends on how the parcel enters the customs system. Most of the time it just proceeds through the system fine but when your parcel arrives at Heathrow Airport on a cargo plane or in the hold of a passenger plane the parcels are all taken to a warehouse in the airport, they go through a conveyor belt and are 'observed' by a human. Anything that looks interesting or suspicous is taken off the belt and put into one of two 'skips' one skip is for the parcels that might incurr a charge more than has been declared. When that skip is full it is transported to another premise completely some miles away for further investigation. Sometimes it can take several weeks to fill the skip so the parcel will sit there during this period, you are unfortunate if yours is the first one in. Then of course when it gets to the customs second destination, someone has to personally go through all the parcels in the skip - that can take a while as well (first one likely is last one out too). After that its back in the system and however long that takes. There is much possibility of human error or laxity in this system but it has meant in the past that I have had to wait a long time for a parcel to arrive. A large one marked 'oldtrombone for spares or repair - no commercial value' is often the one that gets examined! None of this mentions the present troubles with covid, furloughed workers, lack of truck drivers Brexit etc etc... so I reckon mouthpiece to Ireland might still arrive in another week or so Its been a few years now since we have been able to opt for the cheaper 'slow boat' from the States to the UK, that was a pity because it was very reliable and very cheap albeit a slow process.