Question 1

Delivery statuses of shipments

Accepted Answer

Need to check the status of an order? At AfterShip, you can track shipments at any time and from anywhere, with a tracking number.

Each tracking number is represented by status at every step of the shipment’s journey. Further, couriers provide checkpoint messages which are mapped to subtags. The real-time status of shipments at any time is given by the below statuses.

Question 2

Why is my package stuck in transit for so long?

Accepted Answer

AfterShip helps to track shipments and doesn’t handle the physical delivery of shipments in any way.

Reasons why a package may be stuck in transit

Service type: Delivery time varies a lot, depending on which service type your courier has selected. Some services may take as long as 3 months to ship a package
Custom checks: Custom declarations need to be provided when shipping internationally. The documentation may sometimes cause unforeseen delays
International shipping: If a package is coming from overseas (other countries), it is safe to assume that delivery may take longer than usual

Why are there no updates on my package?

Domestic shipments: These are usually updated more often. Updates generally get received within 3 days. If the carrier doesn’t give updates even after 3 days, we suggest you contact the carrier or shipper to ensure your package is on the way
International shipments: These are updated less frequently. Depending on the carrier and service type, delivery time varies from a few days to a few weeks. Some carriers don’t provide complete tracking updates, especially those that are based in China. It means the tracking information stops coming after a shipment arrives at the destination. We suggest you contact the shipper or carrier if there are no updates for over 30 days

What should you do if the status doesn’t change for long?

Request your courier or shipping company to check the status of your pack

Question 3

Where is my package?

Accepted Answer

AfterShip provides you detailed order status information at every step of the shipment’s journey. These could be shipment statuses:

In transit
Information received
Out for delivery
Delivered
An exception occurred
Expired or delivery attempt failed

All you need is a tracking number to track packages easily at AfterShip.

Reasons for not getting updates on packages

Delivery time varies a lot, depending on the service type the courier has chosen
Depending on the destination, the delivery may sometimes get delayed. For packages coming from overseas (other countries), it is safe to assume that delivery may take longer than usual.
Delivery may get held up due to a delay in completing customs declarations.

What to do if there is no update on your package for long?

Request your courier or shipping company to check the status of your package.
Ask your shipper or seller about the used service type and estimated delivery date

You can easily get courier contact information from AfterShip’s website. In case you don’t have the tracking number or are not sure about which courier or shipping company is handling your package, please reach out to your seller or shipper to obtain the required information.

Question 4

Destination Country Tracking

Accepted Answer

AfterShip automatically gets tracking information for both origin and destination country for international shipments of postal service (e.g. China Post, USPS). All the tracking checkpoints from both the couriers or locations are clubbed together under a single tracking number for a better understanding.

However, not all destination postal service provides tracking info and AfterShip may not support tracking of the destination carrier.

Question 5

Updating pending statuses

Accepted Answer

All recently added or imported shipments within your AfterShip account are tagged with "Pending" status, and queued up for tracking in batches. AfterShip automatically gets the latest tracking information from couriers every 3-12 hours.

If "Pending" status still shows for long, it usually means that the courier does not have any delivery information for the tracking number yet. Also, please check if the tracking number is correct, and contact the courier if need be. AfterShip will continue tracking until the courier updates on it’s server.

The “Pending” status changes to “Expired” if the courier does not provide any tracking information updates for over 30 days. AfterShip will stop tracking the shipment.

Question 6

Locate slug for a courier

Accepted Answer

AfterShip identifies each courier by a unique code known as courier slug. It is one of the parameters that is passed when using CSV upload or AfterShip API.

📥 Download Courier list

You can download the courier list, to find out the courier slug for a particular courier.

🚚 Find courier slug from URL

Search for the courier by the name and click on desired courier icon
Check the URL and find the slug

For example if

URL: https://www.aftership.com/couriers/dhl, then

Slug: dhl

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