I do think that fretzburner has a valid point but ... I don't think we should expect a first class update system like in first world countries.
Even my shipments that come from abroad with tracking suddenly disappear from status when the leave they country of origin. And you know what? I am blind sided when they arrive. I actually have someone on the payroll just to watch out for my parcels at my post office. Because it takes two to three weeks for the PHYSICAL notice to arrive at my house from arrival at the post office now that there are a lot of people sending parcels. No to mention that until they assign their own local coded number to the box, nobody in the post office can find your parcel even if it is physically there. How can guitar pusher with this type of Philippine Mail tracking system and customs clearance process ever get a decent update? Unless, you prefer them to keep saying I DUNNO eh.
To be fair, if an item that small is very important and you want to be furnished timely tracking; I suggest you buy it abroad using First Class Mail or Overnight DHL or Fedex and pay the US$100 freight charge. Have them deliver the parcel to your door and pay the grossly overvalued Custom Duties which they do not want to haggle with you. Otherwise, we just have to put up with best effort. I mean come on, the labor required to give timely follow up does NOT compensate for the profit they make on your item -- at least an item that small in value.
Finally, when anybody indents an item, they have choices: a) quote a conservative lead-time or what they call under promise , b) quote an aggressive lead time and risk over promising or c) quote a lead-time that has a 50-50 chance for either a) or b). Would you have preferred that they quoted a) to you? Kasi if they quoted c) I would be happy because at least I know that they are truthful.
To guitar pusher, stop concentrating on small value items even if thats the majority of the market. The small margins are eating you up and you are required to give the same service level of service as you would a big value customer. You simply cannot afford the overhead.
P.S. I recently bought a set of BK pickups from guitar pusher. Now, I wanted to order a custom color from BK and I know Tim Mills. I am the FIRST ever Pinoy to order BK when he was still hand winding them all by himself and this was a long time ago. But when I saw Guitar Pusher had the same model pickups at a reasonable price -- almost the same price as if I imported it myself; I decided to forego the custom color requirement and support Guitar Pusher by purchasing his inventory.
