~sighs~ More and more I hate having to wait for packages. I know some people will scold, “Oh, people these days want instant gratification!” but I really don’t think that’s the issue here. It’s true that I’m not always the most patient person, but generally when I do have to wait I realize, “You know, that wasn’t so bad!” When there’s a wait for a movie or TV show or something, it ends up not being an issue because I find ways to keep myself preoccupied, so no, I don’t think my issue is wanting instant gratification. I think my issue is I’m so dang tired of the nonsense which comes with having to wait for packages.
First you have to wait for whoever you bought from to find it in their heart to send what you bought from them. I try to be understanding when it comes to people on secondhand sites because selling things online is probably something they do on the side for a little extra income. They probably have regular jobs and they have to make time in their schedule to mail things, so I try to be patient. When several days pass without the item being sent and the sellers can’t be bothered to send or respond to polite messages, however, I get sore. I don’t expect to be the most important person in their world; I just want them to deign to send me my dang purchase (or to say, “Heads up, there’s going to be a delay,” if they know they can’t send it right away).
I bought some Power Rangers Jibbitz (Crocs charms) from someone on Mercari on Monday and they haven't shipped yet despite their user page declaring, "I’ll be sending the product Next day or the same day if it’s purchase before 4:00pm Pacific time." :-/ I'll give them the benefit of a doubt (I mean, I spent part of Sunday through part of Thursday away from home, so maybe they're away from home too), but if they still haven't shipped by this coming Monday afternoon, not only will I cancel the order, but I'll buy the dang Jibbitz from someone selling them for a higher price. Don't waste my effing time, my guy! I'll pay someone twelve dollars vs. your nine any day of the week because that's how much I hate my time being wasted. I should also note that after three days, Mercari automatically reminds the seller to ship the item (and I think they warn them again after another three or four days), so the seller is reminded to ship. I've had to cancel orders before. I don't get sellers who offer items for sale and then don't ship them or respond to messages. They don't get paid until the item is received and the transaction is rated, so if they think they can have the money while keeping the item, that's not what's going to happen. This is one reason I stopped buying things on Mercari and only shop there once a year now.
Companies are usually better, but then you get to the pre-orders. I once pre-ordered a figure that the site said was to arrive in June…then July…then September…When October came and the figure still hadn’t come in stock I said, “Forget this!” and bought it from another site which shipped it to me right away. I get that things happen and you can’t always know when something will be in stock, but how is your estimate that far off the mark (especially when other places are getting their stock in just fine)? There was another site that said an item would be in stock the next week, but then the next week would come and they’d say it would arrive the next week. This went on for a couple months, and I finally bought the item from a different website.
Then there’s having to wait for the dang postal service or delivery company to deign to bring the package to your address. I don’t mean simply delivering a package; I mean delivering it without sending it to a completely different part of the country first. I live in a city just outside Dayton, OH. The package that's supposed to arrive today arrived in Cincinnati yesterday, so it looked like it was on track to make it today. Then last night they inexplicably sent it to Aurora, Colorado, which is halfway across the country. It departed Colorado early this morning (probably because the people there took one look and went, "Why the frick is this here!?") and is supposedly still on schedule to arrive today, but unless The Flash is delivering it, I don't see that happening. (Also, my city name looks nothing like "Aurora", so even if someone did somehow misread "OH" as "CO", it doesn't explain how it ended up there) This isn’t the only time this kind of thing has happened. I had one package go from Indiana to Georgia to Ohio, and another went from Wisconsin to Minnesota to Anaheim, California to Ohio (The weird thing is going from California to Ohio took a shorter time then going from Wisconsin to Minnesota. It took multiple days for the package to be sent from Wisconsin to Minnesota, but only one to be sent from California to Ohio). We all make mistakes, but how do you screw up that badly? I’m tired of looking at the location on the tracking website and going, “You have got to be kidding me…”
More and more I wish I could get everything from brick and mortar stores- not because I’m obsessed with “instant gratification”, but because the transaction would go smoothly and I wouldn’t have to deal with the nonsense I keep having to deal with. If I ordered a package and it was shipped in a reasonable time frame & arrived to my house with no issues or side-trips, I’d be fine.