The transit time of packages in the mail

[mtbc]

In the US I got used to waiting awhile for Amazon deliveries. Ground shipping from somewhere like Arizona or even Kentucky could quite reasonably take a few days. Since moving to Scotland, one pleasant surprise was that a smaller country means that parcels tend to arrive promptly, though perhaps it helps that we are not very far from Amazon's large distribution center near Dunfermline.

For a package that arrived today, the tracking recorded the courier as being Amazon Logistics, suggesting that perhaps they are getting into moving their own packages. It progressed most impressively, too: the tracking claims that it was in Swansea (Wales) at 17:46 yesterday and it arrived this morning. Okay, Britain's not a large country, but given that I typically use Amazon's free super saver shipping, it was nice to get the package today instead of Monday.

In contrast with this is perhaps Parcelforce or at least some part of Royal Mail. Over recent weeks we've had a few international deliveries come that took remarkably long. For instance, package tracking showed a parcel from China arriving in the UK on December 8th, but it didn't arrive here until shortly after Christmas.