Nations Photo Lab wants to support our customers throughout the entire order experience. It is important to remember that Nations Photo Lab can never guarantee a shipping receipt date or control the tracking updates of packages as they travel through the carrier's network. Once the shipping carrier has received your order, the carrier is responsible for the package's delivery. We want to educate customers on how orders travel within shipping carriers' "in transit" days.
First, what are “in transit” days? “In transit” days are the number of days a package is in transit from when a carrier picks it up until its final destination. “In transit” days are essential for estimating delivery times and understanding the shipping process. The “in transit” days accumulate while the package is on its way to the customer, including time spent at various sorting and distribution centers.
When tracking a package, customers can use the “in transit” days to help estimate when it will arrive at the destination. Typically, when tracking a shipment, you may see "in transit" on the tracking updates, signifying that your package is moving toward its destination.
Here are some key factors our customers should know that can influence an order's “in transit” date range and cause potential delays along the route.
- Order Processing Time is the time taken to prepare the order items for shipment before handing them off to the carrier. Before an order is in transit, customers should refer to our in-lab production times to determine how long it takes us to manufacture photo products before calculating "in transit" shipping times. After the carrier picks up the order, the first in transit day begins the following business day. Therefore, customers may see a status of "pre-shipment" for up to 48 hours.
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Selection of Shipping Method. Different carrier services have varying "in transit" periods. Use our Shipping FAQ to help determine the correct shipping method for your order. Orders that have been completed or shipped cannot have the shipping address/recipient name and shipping method modified. The drop ship option also cannot be applied at this time. However, click here to view some options available through the shipping carrier.
- Carrier pick-up times do not always coincide with an order's completion date and time. Any orders that are packaged and invoiced after 2:00 p.m. EST will be shipped on the next business day.
- The order's mailing address, origin, and destination can affect "in transit" times because of the distance between Nations Photo Lab and the order recipient. Most of our production facilities are on the East Coast; therefore, West Coast or international orders will take longer to deliver. Use our Shipping FAQ to view our shipping map.
- We hope we do not experience carrier delays, but inclement weather, operational issues, customs checks, and holidays can impact shipping speed.
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Our carriers consistently work to provide more shipping hours on weekends and holidays. However, we will see delays when the USPS closes for federal holidays. Only some shipping methods operate on weekends or holidays, which can influence total transit days. Both USPS and FedEx do consider weekends as "in transit" days, but there are some distinctions in their services.
- For USPS, "in transit" time on weekend days will only be valid when the carrier specifies that the order will be delivered on a Saturday.
- FedEx operates mostly Monday through Friday and is expanding weekend delivery hours in select areas.
- If you require a Saturday shipping delivery upgrade, contact our customer service team, and they will provide the availability and costs for that service.
We ask all customers who have questions about their delivery date to use the information provided by the shipping carrier in the My Account section of our website. Once customers locate their tracking numbers, they should use them on the carrier's website to track their package. Once the order is in transit, we ask customers to wait for it to go through the full shipping date range before reprinting it.
If you need more assistance understanding "in transit" shipping, please Contact Us.
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