[Question] Canada — has anyone got a straight answer on carrier
Trying to get a straight answer on this: Canada — has anyone got a straight answer on carrier.
Where the time actually goes, which I got wrong for two years.
Total transit is first mile, international leg, customs clearance and last mile. I had been attributing everything to the international leg because that is the part with the exotic-sounding name.
When I finally logged the stages separately, the international leg was the most consistent part of the whole journey. The variance was in clearance and in the domestic delivery at my end — neither of which the supplier controls. That reframed how I read every lane report on this board, and it is why the table separates the stages.
Why this board reports by lane and not by supplier.
Two members ordering from the same operation, in the same month, can see completely different transit times because they are on different routes with different carriers and different clearance points. Averaging them produces a supplier-level number that predicts nothing for either of them.
A lane — origin, destination, carrier, month — is the smallest thing that behaves consistently enough to be worth measuring. Once a route has a dozen reports behind it the median is genuinely useful, and that is what the tables on the source pages are built from.
Posted my first lane report here without the month and got asked for it. Fair, and the table is better for the fussiness.
Screenshot none of this. Read the whole thread, including the parts where I am told I am wrong.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Four observations is not a distribution. The lane tables here only became predictive once individual routes had a dozen or more reports behind them.
Packaging is assessable on arrival with no equipment: rigid outer, no movement inside, the cold element sized to the transit rather than to the box.
That is the quoted lead time, not the observed transit. Both belong in the report and they are different columns.
Ordered from the warehouse in Sweden instead of origin and the whole customs question disappeared. 9 days, door to door.
A lane is an origin, a destination, a carrier and a season. Change any one and the distribution changes, which is why supplier-level shipping averages are close to meaningless.
Not convinced by four data points. That is not a lane yet, it is an anecdote with a route attached.
no tracking numbers, ever
13 days on a lane quoted at 18 is the shape you want
origin, destination, carrier, month — post all four or the report is noise
Clearance took three days and the carrier took nine. I had been blaming the wrong half for two years.
the median is more useful than the fastest anybody ever got
Same lane, four orders, 11 to 20 days, all four within a couple of days of the quote. That consistency is the actual finding.
Careful — the supplier does not control the last mile and most of your variance is in it.
Careful — the supplier does not control the last mile and most of your variance is in it.
honest_syringe19 is right about regional stock. It changes the shape of the distribution, not just the mean.
Correction: that was clearance time, not carrier time. The lane table separates them for exactly this reason.
Regional stock replaces an international lane with a domestic one. That is a structural change to the distribution, not a marginal improvement, and it is why the warehouse question matters more than the carrier question.
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Yes — regional stock is the single biggest variable and it barely gets mentioned outside this board.
rigid outer packaging is the cheapest quality signal there is
The regional stock question, and why it is the first thing I ask now.
If a supplier holds the line you want in a warehouse in your own region, your order is a domestic shipment. No international leg, no clearance, a shorter cold exposure and a lead time in days rather than weeks. If they do not, it is an international shipment however it is described at checkout.
So the question is not "how fast do you ship" but "which lines do you hold in regional stock, and is the one I want among them". It is one email, the answer is usually a list, and it changes what to order and when — especially in summer.
reship policy in writing before you order
Yes — median rather than best case. The fastest anybody ever got is not a plan.
Asked TFC which lines they hold regionally before ordering and got a straight list back. Changed what I ordered and when.
Kept a spreadsheet of quoted versus actual across a year. The quote held; the variance was all in the last mile.
Where did the time actually go — international leg, clearance, or last mile?
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