What Amazon’s “Package Delayed in Transit” Means And What To Do About It
If you are eagerly awaiting a package from Amazon but the shipping status says, “Package Delayed in Transit” it can be an annoying situation. What does the mean and what can you do to help the situation?
If you are a Prime member, you can usually get your packages in 2 day (depending on where you live). Even if you don’t get your package in exactly 2 days, you generally know exactly when it will show up at your door. But things do go wrong sometimes, and one way for them to go wrong is when you find out that your Amazon package has been “delayed in transit.”
Amazon Package Delayed In Transit Status
After an Amazon package is shipped to you and something goes wrong, there is a status for this known as “Package Delayed in Transit.” This status can mean a lot of things, but generally it means that something went wrong and your package will not be arriving on the expected day.
There are a number of reasons why you might be seeing this status, some of which are:
- The address was incorrect
- The apartment number, floor number, unit number, or building name was missing
- A weather-related delay (like a hurricane or blizzard)
- Delay due to customs (such as a missing form or custom checks)
What To Do About Amazon Delays
Most of the time the best thing to do with an Amazon delay is simply to wait.
If you’ve purchased something non-essential, like restocking the paper towels in your home, then a day or two doesn’t really matter. Amazon knows this and while they try to get Prime members their packages within 2 days, they don’t guarantee this will happen. This means that when Prime shipments are delayed and they don’t get to you in this timeframe, Amazon usually won’t refund you any money or give you a discount on the item.
It’s important to know that the 2-day shipment promise doesn’t cover third-party sellers, so while you can complain to Amazon is your standard Prime item is late and maybe you will get a refund, you will have no recourse if the item was from a Marketplace seller.
If it’s an important item or the delay has gone missing for more than a few days, then you will want to contact Amazon. This has gotten increasingly difficult to do over the years, but today (in 2022) the best way to get in touch with an Amazon rep is to use the smartphone app’s “Support” menu and request a help chat or a phone call. This will normally get someone from Amazon to contact you within the next 10 minutes.
At this point you can tell the Amazon rep that your package is missing and they will investigate it. If it’s something routine like a weather delay, the rep will generally tell you to sit tight and wait it out. If the package is very late and it looks like it simply won’t show up — say in the case of a seller who is no longer on the Amazon Marketplace platform — then Amazon will refund your money or send another of the same item to you.
If you order a Prime item directly from Amazon and it’s late, you might feel entitled to some sort of discount. While Amazon likely won’t refund your purchase or give you a discount, they will sometimes give you a free month of Amazon Prime in order to compensate you for your trouble.
In Closing
Package Delayed in Transit is a confusing status, but not one that’s should cause any problems, unless if you need your package to be delivered exactly on time. There is an excellent chance that your package will be delivered, it’ll likely just be a day or two late. If this isn’t OK, you should reach out to Amazon and try to get them to fix the situation for you.