Been waiting 3 weeks - is this normal?
Give it another week. I once waited a month and it showed up perfectly fine. If you hit 4 weeks with no delivery, then I'd message the vendor again.
Which vendor? Some of them don't provide tracking to keep things more discreet. Usually it just shows up one day without warning lol.
3 weeks is definitely on the longer side but not unheard of, especially if it's coming from overseas. International shipping can be unpredictable.
@rachlilly you just gotta trust the process. Order early and don't count on it arriving on any specific date. That way you're not stressed.
I had the same situation last month. Took 23 days but it arrived. Just be patient and it'll come through!
I'd rather not say publicly but yeah they mentioned no tracking for security reasons. Just getting antsy because I need it soon.
This is exactly what I'm worried about for my first order lol. How do you guys stay patient?
I feel your pain, man. That waiting game is brutal — especially when you're just staring at an empty tracking dashboard. Three weeks with zero movement? Yeah, that's enough to make you start scrolling through old reviews wondering if you misread something. But honestly, in my experience, this kind of quiet stretch is more common than you'd think, even with vendors who have solid reputations around here.
First off, the lack of tracking info right now isn't automatically a red flag. A lot of vendors mark an order as "shipped" once they've printed the label or handed the pack to their drop-off service, but the actual courier pick-up can take, like, a few days depending on the route. If they're using something like standard China Post or a regional carrier that hands off later to DHL or FedEx, the tracking number often doesn't populate in the international system until it hits a major transit hub — places like Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or Singapore. I've had packs sit in "label created" limbo for a full week before suddenly lighting up on a Monday morning in Frankfurt or Anchorage.
As for packaging durability, most reputable vendors are pretty careful. They usually sandwich the ID between some stiff cardboard or even inside a greeting card so it doesn't get bent by sorting machines. But I've also heard of packs coming in a plain bubble mailer with nothing else — which can survive if it's not crushed, but customs and normal handling are always a risk. You rarely get any feedback on that unless the ID arrives damaged, so it's hard to know until you see it.
Customs is where the real waiting happens, tbh — especially if you're ordering from a country with stricter inspection like the US, UK, or parts of the EU. A standard airmail parcel can spend 5–10 days just sitting in customs clearance. If there's no tracking, you're basically in the dark that whole time. I've had one pack clear in two days and another hold for over two weeks — both from the same vendor. It's just the luck of the scan.
So, I'd say three weeks is right at the edge of normal for untracked shipping. You're in that grey zone where it could show up tomorrow, or it might be another week or two. I wouldn't panic until you hit the 5-week mark without any update or response from the vendor. For now, send them a polite message asking if they can confirm the courier service they used — some vendors can give you a partial tracking number or at least tell you which hub they shipped through. That's helped me narrow down delays before. Hang in there, this is the worst part of the process.