“Stuck in transit” is the claim customers file first and merchants resolve last, because nobody knows whether the parcel is gone or merely slow. The customer sees a status that has not changed since Thursday. The store sees the same thing. Both are guessing.
The way out is to stop reading the status and start reading the timeline. Carriers leave a trail, and the trail says a great deal about what happens next.
- The three kinds of scan and what a gap after each one means
- How long each carrier normally goes quiet, from OnTrac to La Poste
- When the stuck-in-transit claim should open, and what the AI checks
- What to do while you wait, and what not to do
Three kinds of scan
Every carrier timeline is made of three kinds of event. Acceptance: the carrier has it. Movement: it left or arrived somewhere. Delivery: it is done. A parcel is stalled when the last event is a movement and nothing has followed past the expected delivery date.
Three questions tell you how worried to be:
Where did it stop? A stall at a regional hub is usually a missed connection; the parcel gets on the next truck. A stall at origin, right after acceptance, sometimes means it never really left, and a trace finds it on a shelf. A stall at “clearance” is customs, which has its own clock.
How long? Domestic ground networks scan daily; three quiet days past the estimate is worth a call. Postal services skip scans and still deliver. International can sit two weeks in customs and arrive intact.
Was there an exception? “Address issue”, “damaged label”, “held at location” are not delays. They are actions waiting for someone, sometimes the customer, sometimes the store.
Five quiet days on OnTrac is alarming. Five quiet days on La Poste is Tuesday.
Carrier by carrier
UPS and FedEx scan at nearly every touch. Silence past the estimate usually means a misroute; a trace request often finds the parcel within a day or two. A “delivery exception” event names the reason.
USPS is the most likely to arrive after a long quiet spell. A Ground Advantage parcel can go five days without a scan and land on the sixth. Priority Mail is more consistent. “In transit to next facility” repeated daily is the network’s way of saying it is somewhere and moving.
DHL and the international posts stall at customs. The clearance event on the timeline tells the customer why, and a duties-and-taxes hold explains itself once the shopper sees it.
Regional carriers (OnTrac, Intelcom, Canpar, Purolator Ground) move fast; more than a day or two of silence is unusual and worth a call.
Canada Post and Royal Mail can go quiet between hubs for two or three days on ground services and still arrive on time.
When the claim should open
BuySure opens claims a few days after the order and applies a store-set waiting period so a stuck claim cannot be filed while the parcel is inside its normal window. When it does open, the AI looks at the last scan and its age, the carrier’s normal behaviour for that service, and the customer’s history, and scores it.
A low-risk stuck claim under your limit resolves automatically, usually as a replacement. The timeline records that the original, if it turns up, should be returned with a prepaid label or kept at your discretion. A claim on a parcel that is still within a plausible window for that carrier is held for a few more days of tracking before it is scored, and the customer is told so.
What to do while you wait
- Tell the customer what you see. The last scan, where, when, and what usually happens next. A tracking page that shows the last scan and its age does this without anyone writing an email.
- Open a trace if the parcel is more than a few days past the estimate on a carrier that normally scans daily. Carriers find more parcels than merchants expect.
- Do not ship a replacement early unless the customer’s history is spotless and the value is low. Two parcels arriving is a cost, not a courtesy, and it teaches the customer that “stuck” means “free second order”.
- Let the claim open on schedule and let the AI score it. If the original arrives afterwards, the return flow handles it.
Worked example
A candle brand ships USPS Ground Advantage from Portland. An order to Buffalo shows “in transit to next facility” on Monday and nothing since. On Friday the customer files. The store’s stuck waiting period is six days past the estimate, which was Thursday, so the claim page tells the customer it opens on the following Wednesday and shows the last scan. On Tuesday the parcel scans “arrived at post office, Buffalo” and delivers. No claim, no replacement, one slightly impatient but informed customer.
Change the carrier to OnTrac and the same four-day silence is a real problem. The claim opens on schedule, the AI sees a carrier that never goes quiet that long, scores it low, and a replacement ships the same day.
Questions
What if the original arrives after a replacement was sent?
Your policy decides: ask for it back with a prepaid label, or let the customer keep it. BuySure’s return flow handles the first; the timeline records the second.
Does a carrier refund the merchant for a lost parcel?
Sometimes, for insured shipments, after a claim process that takes weeks. Package protection exists so the customer does not wait for that.
Is “returned to sender” the same as stuck?
No. It is a separate claim type: the carrier could not deliver and sent the parcel back. The resolution is usually a reship to a corrected address.
Can the customer see the same timeline the store sees?
Yes. That is the point of a branded tracking page. Same scans, same ages, same explanation, so the conversation starts from shared facts.
