I’d be a millionairess if I had a Pound for every time someone asked the question “when will my package arrive?” or “how long will it take to get to here from there?”.  Of course, because I don’t deliver your package personally it is impossible to give the definitive answer to either question.  I rely on postal services to do the legwork for me.  However, after 8 years of selling vintage lingerie to buyers all around the globe and several thousand packages later, I have gained a fair idea of how the system works. Below are some random facts:

• I have sent out nearly 7000 packages over the last 8 years.
• Even though I am in England, a large percentage of my customers are in the United States.
• DreamDate is very popular in France.  Germany too.
• I send more packages out to China than ever before, and that figure is growing.
• I don’t use courier services because I think they are unreliable.  I prefer to use national postal services instead.
• Oddly, in the early days I hardly ever supplied customers here in the UK.  Now, sales at home are increasing steadily.
• Brian, my local Post Office sub-postmaster is a veritable mine of information and is my hero.

The above collection of random facts are a bit of trivia, but here are some of the more relevant facts you might need to know:

• For deliveries in the UK, I use Standard First Class as my default service.  If you want a tracked ‘signed-for’ service, this can be arranged but at additional cost.
• For other destinations, such as the USA, Australia, etc, I use Standard Air Mail (NOT ‘signed-for’ or tracked). Again, if you want a tracked ‘signed-for’ service, this can be arranged but at additional cost.
• High value orders of 10 or more are automatically sent tracked and ‘signed-for’.  My treat!
• Average shipping time to USA/Canada is 7-10 working days.   EU is 3-5 days.  UK is usually within 2 working days.  These times can of course vary and are meant as a guide only.
• Christmas and New Year, national holidays and even weekends slow things down, so please bear that in mind.
• In a world where good customer service sometimes seems like a thing of the past, organisations like Royal Mail, USPS, Australia Post, La Poste etc still do a great job.

I thought my American customers might be interested to see this – the actual tracked timeline of a recent DreamDate package sent all the way from rural Lincolnshire in England to the Pacific coast of California in just more or less 5 days, when you take into account the time difference.   Like I said earlier, once your package is in the postal system it is out of my hands – it could take a little longer than this.

Here’s another one to the United States – this time about 8 days in total.  All is not what it seems though – note that it took just 2 days to get from eastern England to Chicago, but a further 6 days (!) to do the US leg of the journey from Chicago to Arkansas.  A US order placed with a UK seller only added 2 days to the total delivery time!

Oh, and just one more thing before I go – I know moving house is notoriously stressful, but please take a minute to update your address on Etsy!  Thanks in advance!