Gmarket Tips 3 - Tracking your items ♥

For people who are hoping to receive their items by a certain date, or for people who wonder where their items are after they've placed their order, or for people who are just anxious and can't wait for their items to arrive, you can track (or stalk) your items online! There are tracking services available for almost all stages of shipping and delivery, from once the item is about to leave the seller till the item reaches your doorstep! ♥

There are three main tracking systems,
♥ Domestic Tracking (Korea) - to track from seller to Gmarket HQ,
♥ EMS Tracking (Korea) - to track from Gmarket to your country, and
♥ EMS Tracking (in your country) - to track from processing center in your country to YOU!
In this post, the example for last part is specific to Singapore, but your country should have it too, you could try to find out the website (:


♥♥ DOMESTIC TRACKING ♥♥
To check to status of your items in Korea, go to My Gmarket>>Shopping List>>Recent Order. You should be able to see your order and each item in the order, with one of 4 statuses beside it: On Request, Expected Delivery Date, Domestic On Delivery or Domestic Delivered.



What the statuses mean...
♥ On Request ♥:
As the title implies, your item is on request. The seller has not shipped it out yet, and there's no indication when your item will be shipped out. At this status, all you can do is wait ^^ The seller with then either 1) "acknowledge" and make preparations to ship it out, thereby changing the status to "Expected Delivery Date :2011-xx-xx", or 2) the seller will just ship it out, where the status will change to "Domestic On Delivery". This status is the most vexing because you really can only/just have to wait, and have no way of knowing if the seller will ship today, tomorrow or one week later! :(

♥ Expected Delivery Date : 2011-xx-xx ♥:
This is sort of an indication given by the seller that he/she will send out the item by the given date. Not all sellers will put this status, some skip directly from "On Request" to "Domestic on Delivery". With this status you''ll be a bit more assured as at least you know your item will be sent out (usually/most of the time) by the given date ♥

♥ Domestic On Delivery ♥:
Item has been shipped out by seller, and is on its way to the Gmarket HQ/warehouse. Once item reaches this status, a little green button with the word "Tracking" will appear. You can click this, and a popup will appear. This tracking is provided by the courier/delivery company that the seller used.

On the popup detailed statuses will be listed, and depending on which courier company, they can even list the exact time of activity, where the item is, which office/terminal it is currently passing through. It's all in Korean though! But if you see 배송완료/배달완료 on the list of statuses on the popup, it means that your item has reached Gmarket HQ. This tracking is a more "real-time" tracking than the one provided on the Gmarket page, and is usually a few hours more updated. You can track your items in detail with it if you really wanna know where your item is hehe ^^

♥ Domestic Delivered ♥:
Item has reached Gmarket HQ. Gmarket will then wait for all the items in the order to be delivered, then they'll consolidate it and ship it overseas. Upon shipping it overseas, Gmarket will provide you with an EMS tracking number.


♥♥ EMS TRACKING (KOREA) ♥♥
To check the EMS tracking number, go to My Gmarket>>Shopping List>>Overseas Order. At the right-most column there'll be a green "Tracking" button. Click it and a popup will appear. The popup shows the status of your EMS package after Gmarket has shipped it out.

For EMS, the order of statuses (for packages to Singapore) is:

>> Posting/Collection

>> Arrival at outward office of exchange

>> Departure from outward office of exchange

>> Handed over to air carrier

>> Received by air carrier

>> Departure from airport

>> Arrival at destination airport

>> Delivered to destination airport

>> Arrival at inward office of exchange

>> Final delivery

Actually, once the pacakge has reached "Arrival at destination airport" you could track the item at the website of your country's EMS handler, if they have one. It's usually more up to date/real-time than the Korea one, because the EMS handler has been changed to the one in your country, and it's the handler in your country who's updating. For Singapore, the handler is Speedpost. Their updates are pretty much in real-time. However their processing is quite slow. I don't know if all countries have a website or whether they update quickly and in real-time.

For Japan, it's Japanpost.
For the Philippines, it's Philpost.
For Thailand, it's Thailandpost.
For USA, it's USPS.
For Vietnam, it's VNpost.
For Russia, it's Russianpost.
For Australia, it's Austaliapost.
For UK, it's Parcel Force.
You can use Google to check for your country's EMS handler ♥

♥♥ TRACKING IN SINGAPORE(or your country) ♥♥
Once the item has landed in Singapore (or your country, I think the process should be similar?), you can go to Speedpost (or your local EMS handler) to check the status of the item. You can do this if you want to estimate when the package will reach you. Speedpost is updated first before the EMS page is updated. This is because once the package has landed in Singapore, the courier switches hands to Speedpost, so their systems are updated before the Korea side. Copy and paste/type your EMS number into the box and click track. You will be led to the following page:

There are 5 possible statuses on the Speedpost track and trace page: Processing at Sorting Center, With Delivery Courier, Missed Delivery, Unsuccessful Delivery or Delivered.

♥ Processing at Sorting Center ♥:
Package is at Speedpost sorting center, will be assigned to a delivery courier. For Gmarket orders, this status is usually updated between 2am~5am that day for packages that come in by the 900am (reach SG 1430pm)flight. For the packages that come in by the 2310pm (reach SG 430am) flight, status is usually updated by 12am later that day. Usually if the time is before 430am, the item will be delivered to you later that day (if it's Mon~Fri, sometimes Sat). If not the item will be delivered the next working day.

♥ With Delivery Courier ♥:
Package is on its way to you. Wait happily at home if you are, or make sure someone's at home to receive it!

♥ Missed Delivery ♥:
Either 1) you weren't at home or 2) delivery man had too many packages to deliver. For the first case you'll receive a slip of paper informing you of missed delivery; you can choose to ask the delivery man to come the following day or go to the nearest post office to collect yourself two days later. For the second case the delivery man will come again the following working day.

♥ Unsuccessful Delivery ♥:

Something like "Missed Delivery", I notice they use this status more and more. Some reasons I have encountered so far include: "Delivery attempted but no response", "Wrong sort/rcpt", "Heavy Delivery". The first case would be your fault for not being at home, and you'll get a delivery slip, but the latter 2 would be due to Speedpost's inefficiency/lack of manpower.

- "Wrong sort/rcpt" is basically saying they sorted the items wrongly and gave your package to the wrong delivery man. So the person delivering it doesn't cover your area, and at the end of the day they bring it back to the sorting center and they'll give it to another delivery guy (hopefully the correct one) the following day.

- "Heavy Delivery" is saying they had too much packages to deliver, and insufficient manpower so though the package was meant to be sent to you they couldn't deliver it, so they will delivery it to you at the next available delivery slot.

***I see no reason why we should have to encounter unsuccessful deliveries due to inefficiencies of the postal company. Doesn't EMS stand for EXPRESS MAIL SERVICE? Isn't the company's name SPEEDpost? At the end of the day, seeing the unsuccessful delivery status makes you wonder, where's the speed, where's the mail, and where's the service!***

♥ Delivered ♥:
Package has been received by you/someone in your house!

So that's it for tracking to your doorstep! Hope this'll help you quell any worries of where your packages/items are. Now you know how to track them each and every step of the way~♥ :D

--------------------------------------------

start rant// And while on the topic of delivery, for Singpost's Registered Mail tracking there's this annoying status "Held on hand". Basically it's the same as "Heavy Delivery", the delivery person didn't have time to deliver it and so held it on hand.

Someone explain to me how this can happen two working days in a row? And I think it would have happened for a third day if I hadn't been able to catch a delivery woman that evening and ask her how Registered Mail is handled. She said she didn't handle Registered Mail, didn't answer my questions and gave me a number to call.

I called the number the following day, and they said they'd call me back in 10min after checking the status...but they called 1.5hours later. Then they said that my package would be delivered between 130~2pm. I waited till 230+pm before it finally came. And when I finally did get my package item, it was delivered by the very woman who said she didn't handle Registered Mail?

I conclude that their staff have been well-trained to play the roundabout game and make you believe there's nothing you can do but wait :/ I now have very little faith in Singpost. //end rant