The shortest answer to this question is: It is probably not lost. Just taking a long time.
If your package shipped before Christmas has not yet arrived by 1/14 within the US, let us know and we will work something out for a replacement. If you are out of the US, it is probably reasonable to expect 4-6 weeks.
The long answer?
This article describes the situation well: https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/23/business/usps-delays-chrismas-trnd/index.html
2020 has been a *WILD* year.
We have used USPS heavily since 2013. They have always been reliable. Yes, things go wrong on occasion, but mathematically, they have been amazing.
Since the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we have seen a change in delivery times. USPS has stated numerous times that the year has been like Black Friday shipping levels the entire year. Packages that were taking 1-5 days shifted to 1-2 weeks. But they all eventually arrived.
Then, in mid-July, the US Government made some major changes to USPS and the service got a little worse. Then we had the elections and they had even more volume.
Then the actual Black Friday and Holiday season hit and USPS pretty much just ground to a halt.
The other shippers hired extra help and restructured to handle the surge, but USPS has a lot less operational flexibility due to its status as a psuedo government entity.
While we are still shipping boxes on time every month, we are seeing a lot of variety in how the boxes are moving through the world. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this, but we can offer some advice based on what we are seeing.
Generally, we ship all our packages in one massive batch. The 20 ton truck comes and picks up all of our boxes, then we present them with a SCAN form that marks them all as received by USPS. What used to happen is that the 20 ton truck would deliver the packages to the Wilmington, DE distribution center where they would be scanned and forwarded to their next destination. Since the July restructuring, they are either not going to the Wilmington depot or not being scanned there. Typically, we see the first scan in Trenton,NJ or Philadelphia. That has shifted to Washington DC in the week before Christmas. Often times that first scan will be skipped entirely and we may not see a tracking update for 5 days or more until after the initial pickup scan.
If your package is showing an acceptance scan, but nothing else, it means it either has not been processed at that regional center or they decided just to move it through by hand for some reason without scanning. To repeat, we are frequently seeing instances where the boxes are NOT being scanned at all until they have gone through several distribution centers.
If you are outside the US, there are more steps.
Once it leaves our regional center, it goes to a center in Jamaica, NY for sorting to international destinations. Normally, this is the last time it will be scanned in the US. However, since the start of the pandemic, there seem to be one ore more additional steps that are really slowing down the process.
If you are an international customer, please wait 6 weeks from the date of your shipping notification before contacting us.
These changes to the USPS have been a pretty major disruption to our ability to operate the business. If this seems like the wrong way for the post office to operate, we suggest you research the issue and consider contacting your government representative.