Notice - New, More Reliable Shipping Options Available for Domestic Orders

This notice affects domestic (USA) & North America orders.

Update 11/16/2015

Thank you very much for your patience and understanding regarding the situation with USPS. Over the last few months, we have been working on resolving this issue. We’ve decided to use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to fulfill some of our orders. For those who are unfamiliar with FBA, basically we ship a portion of our inventory to Amazon, who then packs and delivers orders to customers on our behalf. Amazon is a global leader in fulfillment and we believe they are much more reliable than the USPS. In addition, FBA is much more cost-effective compared to UPS or Fedex, which is another reason we chose to go with them.

We’ve added 2 new shipping methods for our domestic customers:

Standard (3-7 Business Days)
Expedited (2-3 Business Days)

Please note that the timeframe above does not include processing time, which is labeled on each product page. Click here for an example on the processing time for our Longshot stage 2 kit. Most of our products will be shipped within 1-3 business days after ordering.

We also removed USPS Priority Mail from the available shipping options, because based on the stats we’ve collected from tracking info over the last 6 months, only 57% of our Priority Mail shipments made it in 3 business days or less, which is an unacceptable number for a service that claims to deliver in 2-3 days. FBA, on the other hand, has a very solid track record (>90% on-time) in our tests so far. The cost of our new Expedited shipping option is very similar to Priority Mail, or only slightly more expensive in some cases. We believe this is a fair tradeoff for more reliable shipping and tracking. The Standard option is for our price-conscious customers, and it is oftentimes still faster than Priority Mail.

We will be keeping USPS First Class as an option, as almost 90% of our orders are under 1 pound in weight. We know that for small items, First Class is still the most cost-effective method available. Plus, about 80% of First Class shipments get to their destinations within 5 business days, so it’s much more reliable than Priority Mail.

International shipments will still go through USPS First-Class International and Priority International. There are no cost-effective alternatives for us at this time.

We hope these changes will result in a better shopping experience for our valued customers, and we thank you again for your continued support through the years.

Orange Mod Works Team


Update 6/22/2015

Note:
Most affected service is USPS Priority Mail (about 50%). Fewer first class packages (15%) are affected.

We have ascertained that the issue is not with our local post office, but with the USPS system in our area as a whole. The problem started in late 2014, but we haven't felt the full brunt of it until recently. This is because in May 2015, one of the two USPS distribution centers in Houston was closed. All packages in our (very large and populated) area now have to be routed through one facility. USPS stated that this would not impact delivery times, but they were wrong. Packages are being delayed anywhere from 1-9 days, and from what we can see, it's because they're sitting in the North Houston processing center for days at a time.

We are now considering Fulfillment by Amazon in addition to getting the best rates possible from UPS and Fedex. Our plan hasn't been finalized yet, but in our survey answers we noted that most of you wanted options, so we'll be adding at least one of the three choices here to our shipping offers. We'll be keeping USPS First-Class but probably not Priority, unless the speed of that service improves in the future. At this time, Ground services from the other carriers are much faster than USPS Priority Mail. Poor tracking updates is also a major issue with USPS.

For more information, please read
this article and this article, both of which pertain to the problem we're experiencing. This forum thread also contains some great information from other sellers using USPS, both in and out of the Houston area.

Original notice (posted 6/5/2015):

Possible Shipping Delays for Domestic (USA) & North America Orders (USPS Priority Mail and First-Class Mail).

Recently we have been receiving reports of USPS tracking numbers not updating for days, with the tracking status stuck on "Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS." We just want to let you know that we're investigating the issue.

Our system automatically generates an email to you when the tracking number for your order is created. The item will be dropped off at the post office within the next business day (we currently drop off packages every day from Monday through Friday, except holidays). In the past, the post office would scan the package the same day and update its status as "Arrived at USPS facility" or similar.

Recently, USPS has been especially slow in scanning our packages. Sometimes, we noticed that it would take 3+ days for them to do this. We've been trying to figure out what's going on with our local post office, but as of right now we have no answers. The only thing we can think of is that our local post office is very backed up and it's taking them several extra days to process all the packages it receives.

This of course isn't acceptable for us or our customers. Therefore we'll be dropping off packages at other post office locations to see if we still experience the same delays. We are also looking into switching our shipping system to UPS or Fedex, which are more reliable services. However, the cost for domestic shipments will be higher. Most affected will be small packages under 1lb, which will increase by 30-40% (because every package below 1 lb will be considered 1 lb by these services). Packages 1 lb and over, as well as flat-rate shipping, will increase by 10-20%. And for international North American shipments, the cost can nearly double.

We need your help in determining what's the best way to proceed. Please answer this simple two-question survey to help us improve our shipping service.

We do apologize for the inconvenience. Your orders will still get to your location safely, but it may take a few extra days in light of the current situation with USPS.

Thanks very much for your continued support,
Orange Mod Works Team