I ordered a few PCBs at JLCPCB and below you can see the tracking info I got.
The list shows the whereabouts of the PCBs in reverse chronological order. In total it takes about 7 days from start to finish. It appears that the goods bounced between LEIPZIG and COLOGNE in Germany (distance is about 500 kilometer) a few times before they made their way to Duesseldorf and then to the Netherlands (final destination, this is not included in the list).
A friend of mine ordered a few pcbs and something similar happened but via a completely different route. But in that route also PCBs seemed to visit the same airport several times before getting to their final destination.
This must be a costly way of transporting goods and does not seem to make much sense. There have been several people on this forum speaking about the orders they made with jlcpcb, so I’m curious whether they experienced something similar.
Processed at DUESSELDORF-DEU
2020-10-29 07:46:26 Arrived at Delivery Facility in DUESSELDORF-DEU
2020-10-29 06:30:19 Departed Facility in COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-29 06:21:44 Processed at COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-29 04:16:04 Clearance processing complete at COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-29 03:55:55 Arrived at Sort Facility COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-29 02:53:41 Departed Facility in LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-28 23:50:08 Processed at LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-28 23:49:08 Clearance processing complete at LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-28 06:22:55 Clearance processing complete at LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-28 06:22:00 Shipment on hold
2020-10-28 04:07:02 Customs status updated
2020-10-28 02:03:00 Arrived at Sort Facility LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-27 17:22:16 Departed Facility in COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-27 06:30:26 Shipment on hold
2020-10-27 05:04:52 Processed at COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-27 01:15:22 Customs status updated
2020-10-25 18:05:00 Clearance Delay
2020-10-25 18:04:00 Uncontrollable Clearance Delay
2020-10-25 09:12:57 Customs status updated
2020-10-24 01:07:00 Clearance Delay
2020-10-24 01:06:00 Uncontrollable Clearance Delay
2020-10-23 23:26:14 Processed for clearance at LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-23 22:28:00 Arrived at Sort Facility LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-10-23 15:00:58 Departed Facility in HONG KONG-HKG
2020-10-23 14:55:31 Arrived at Sort Facility COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-23 14:13:13 Processed for clearance at COLOGNE-DEU
2020-10-23 14:13:13 Clearance Delay
2020-10-23 09:27:32 Processed at HONG KONG-HKG
2020-10-23 01:56:51 Customs status updated
2020-10-22 23:44:27 Clearance processing complete at HONG KONG-HKG
2020-10-22 23:31:37 Arrived at Sort Facility HONG KONG-HKG
2020-10-22 18:52:06 Customs status updated
2020-10-22 18:13:58 Departed Facility in SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-10-22 18:09:58 Processed at SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-10-22 18:08:39 Arrived at Sort Facility SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-10-22 17:30:57 Customs status updated
2020-10-22 17:06:05 Shipment picked up
It was faster and more direct for me, but it did pass by Leipzig:
2020-12-09 08:49:13 With delivery courier
2020-12-09 08:09:39 Arrived at Delivery Facility in LYON-FRA
2020-12-09 07:34:57 Departed Facility in LYON-FRA
2020-12-09 07:15:33 Processed at LYON-FRA
2020-12-09 06:49:37 Clearance processing complete at LYON-FRA
2020-12-09 06:27:45 Arrived at Sort Facility LYON-FRA
2020-12-09 04:28:12 Customs status updated
2020-12-09 04:21:54 Departed Facility in LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-12-08 22:39:14 Processed at LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-12-08 14:40:16 Arrived at Sort Facility LEIPZIG-DEU
2020-12-08 05:08:58 Departed Facility in HONG KONG-HKG
2020-12-08 04:22:11 Processed at HONG KONG-HKG
2020-12-08 00:14:07 Clearance processing complete at HONG KONG-HKG
2020-12-08 00:13:07 Arrived at Sort Facility HONG KONG-HKG
2020-12-07 20:00:26 Customs status updated
2020-12-07 19:04:58 Departed Facility in SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-12-07 19:04:23 Processed at SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-12-07 19:02:04 Arrived at Sort Facility SHENZHEN-CHN
2020-12-07 16:53:05 Shipment picked up
The distance between Cologne and Leipzig is about 500 km, and it travels that route 3 times, that is not very efficient. The route your goods took seems way more direct. Leipzig seems to be the entry point for Europe.
I know some people who worked in logistics planning, everything is incredibly optimized, a lot of some of what looks really bizarre for a single item actually makes sense when you look at it from the perspective of the whole package and fleet flow.
And sometimes they’re just being stupid (ok, Jos didn’t get my favourite “THERE IS NO CITY NAMED NETHERLANDS IN GERMANY” in this log so his routing might have been on purpose, but I’m not entirely convinced )
That is exactly what I would have expected. I was on a chat with jlpcb.com an hour ago and the explanation was that the cargo had been in customs for 5 days an they had repeated part of the route in the list. He seemed to suggest that the pcb’s didn’t travel between Leipzig and Cologne several times. Listing the same route several times for several days did not make much sense to me, though.
Consignment shipping is like a container shipping. One box is filled with orders to maximize volume and reduce empty shipping. Your order would join a consignment then go on tour while parts of the consignment are removed to be delivered or join other consignment. It looks odd but it maximizes the cost of transportation.
I had an order of something a year or so ago that tracking put here in my town 3 days early. But then instead of delivering it the post office decided to take it on a tour of AZ for those 3 days sending it to a number of random sorting centers across the state before bringing it back and finally delivering it.
I’m sure it was some kind of logistics fluke…but it sure felt like they didn’t want to deliver it ahead of schedule and set some kind of precedent for that kind of nonsense
)
