The United States Postal Service is experiencing monumental delays. You may ask what does this have to do with a cigar blog? As the United States is seeing an increase in COVID-19 numbers, people are turning to online shopping in order to get their Christmas gifts and this includes cigars. This has led to an increased volume never seen before.
We were recently sent a video from a trucker in Indiana who shared with us a backup of trucks outside the USPS distribution facility in Indianapolis.
We recently reached out to our local distribution center and was told by an employee on the condition of anonymity, “Our distribution center currently has a backlog of over 900,000 packages and we currently have a significant amount of people out due to COVID-19 that have either taken time off, are quarantining or have the virus.” When asked about the backlog in comparison to other years the employee added, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Barry Stein of 2GuysCigars.com added, “Right now we are advising people to use UPS when possible. Unfortunately, they require a signature of someone 21 years or older to receive tobacco items leaving some customers no option but to use USPS. We are spending half our days answering people’s emails or phone calls about their packages. Sadly, our answer hasn’t always been well received. Between the pandemic and added volume, things are taking 2 weeks or in some cases even longer.”
Pino Cero, a Care Package member reached out to us this morning to inform us his Care Package arrived at 6:15am. Located just 45 miles from The Cigar Authority, the package took 12 days to arrive. He added that his mail lady informed him his local post office is currently 4 days behind in delivering the mail.
Is anyone else ready for this year to be over?
