What do the letters in the track number mean. What is the track number of the parcel, what does it look like and where to look for it. Strange postal services and services where it is difficult to track the package

Good afternoon!

Shipments with numbers of the type ZA .. LV- new type postal items, developed by Aliexpress together with the Russian Post. This type of mail is called "Simplified Registered Mail" (Simplified Registered Mail) and was created to reduce the cost of the delivery process of inexpensive goods from Aliexpress. These parcels are tracked only in three statuses:

Accepted in the post office: the seller handed over the parcel at the post office;
Came to the place of delivery: the package has arrived at your post office;
Received by recipient.

Departures are not tracked for all destinations, but all the necessary information is present. It is important for the buyer to know that the goods were physically sent and arrived at the post office. For the seller, only one status is important - "Received by the addressee".

ZA .. LV shipment tracking

The main statuses of such parcels are displayed on the Russian Post website. Tracking starts working immediately after the parcel has arrived at the post office. We must not forget about one nuance - the parcels are sent through the post offices of Latvia, but the goods are physically located in China. Therefore, it takes some time (usually no more than a week) for the delivery of goods from China to Latvia. The movement of the parcel before it arrives at the Latvian post office can also be tracked, but, unfortunately, only in English:

You can do this on the official website of the Cainiao company: http://global.cainiao.com, which deals with all the logistics of Aliexpress.

If you have any questions or your package is not tracked - write a comment on this answer, and I will definitely help!

When you first encounter foreign shopping, you may not know what a track number is, what it means, what it shows, and how much it is needed at all. It is especially difficult to deal with tracks when shopping on Aliexpress. However, it is important to understand in order to avoid losses, both direct material and nerve cells (which, perhaps, is even more important than money).

Important note. The article deals with international tracks (international postal identifiers, IPI). The principle and idea of tracks for local mail is the same, but the format of the tracks is different.

In today's article on the site we will tell you:

What is it and why do you need a track
What are the tracks
What is the difference between the track number and the order number for Aliexpress
Where can I find the track personal account on Aliexpress and iHerb
What is track status
Where to track tracks
How often should the status be updated?
Why the track can not be tracked

track number, tracking number, mail ID- this is a unique set of letters and numbers assigned to your package by the postal or courier service when making delivery. By this identifier, the postal service can uniquely find out where and in what condition your parcel is. If the post office and courier company provides such a service, then you can find out this information by this identifier. Now this is usually done through websites or apps.

The parcel, on which the track number is reported, is called registered mail. There is still an unregistered postal item; tracks are not issued to the sender for it.

To some extent, the track can be compared to a car number, passport number or birth certificate.

What are the tracks

During its sometimes long journey to the recipient, the parcel can be delivered by various services, companies or state post offices. In the most standard case, the parcel travels through the country of the sender by the state mail of this country (for example, China Post), and through the country of destination by its own state mail (for example, Russian Post). Sometimes this chain is longer.

International postal identifier

In order for the sender and recipient, as well as postal services, to know where the package is now, the tracks had to be standardized. Imagine if there was no standard, and the Chinese wrote tracks using hieroglyphs, and the Russians using Cyrillic.

In order to avoid such misunderstandings, the international postal identifier standard was developed. This is a set of two Latin letters at the beginning, 9 numbers and two Latin letters at the end.

Species CA123456780CN.

But these letters and numbers are not selected from the lamp, but according to the standard. That is, it is not enough just to come up with any letters / numbers and it will already be the correct tracked track, no! You can read more about how the international track number should look like in.

According to the rules, the track must be unique for at least a year.

If you know the track number of your parcel and this track number is international, you can track the location and current status of your parcel at any time using the website of your state post office. There are also many other ways, but more on that below.

Not an international track

If the parcel was sent by such a company, then the company may issue to the sender not an international track tracked all over the world, but its own internal one. This track can be in any format.

fake track

Also, there is such a thing as a "fake track". It can be like a nonsensical character set that is never tracked anywhere. So is a more complex scheme with the creation of websites of pseudo transport companies.

What is the difference between the track number and the order number for Aliexpress

The order number is just a set of numbers in your personal account. You cannot track the movement of the parcel using this number. The track is the identifier of the PARCEL (package, small package). The order number for Aliexpress and the track number are completely different things. Do not confuse.

How to find a track in your Aliexpress account

How to find a track in your iHerb account

What is track status. What can he show?

During the movement of the parcel, it moves from one department to another, goes through sorting, customs clearance, and the destination arrives. A lot can happen to her. All this information is reflected briefly in the form of parcel statuses. You receive this information either in the personal account of the store, or when tracking on the mail site, or on the sites of parcel tracking services.

Please note that the status of the track and the status of the order (especially on Aliexpress) are different things.

Where to track tracks

In the case of a purchase on Aliexpress, the track status, in most cases, can be tracked directly in your personal account. For international tracks, you can get information on the website of your state post office. Well, not international tracks can be tracked on aggregator sites. We analyzed these services in detail with links in the article about.

How often should the track status be updated?

There is no strict regulation. In addition, during the movement of a parcel by sea or by land over long distances (from one country to another), as well as during periods of hype, the status may freeze for a long time. But in our experience, statuses on an international track rarely get stuck for more than 2 weeks. More and more depends on what status everything is.

Why the track is not tracked

Maybe you have a fake track. Or the track is not international standard, which was tracked only by the country of the sender (the Chinese so often), after which it was handed over to regular mail under a different track.

Is it worth tracking the track at all?

Worth it, but without fanaticism. Check once a week - this is enough. In the case of Aliexpress, it is not necessary to check at all. Set yourself a reminder for the date the day before the expiration of the protection period and sleep peacefully. Nerves will be better.

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In this article, we will get acquainted with all types of postal services and logistics companies, the services of which are used by suppliers when forwarding ordered goods.

How to find out where the package is online:

Enter the track code, click "track" and find where your parcel is.

One of the most common delivery methods is China Post, which, in turn, is divided into 2 types:

China Post Air Mail - delivery of small packages;
China Post Air Parcel - delivery of parcels weighing up to 20 kg.

registered shipments China Post Air Parcel is assigned a track number that starts with a capital letter C, China Post Air Mail - with a capital letter R. The last 2 letters of the track number are CN. Thus, the track number of a small package will look like this - RA123456789CN, parcels - CD123456789CN.

HongKongPost is more commonly seen as a paid postage service. Its rates are somewhat higher than those of ChinaPost. Sending small packages weighing up to 2 kg is carried out by Hongkong Post Air Mail, up to 10 kg - Hongkong Post Air Parcel, over 10 kg - Hongkong SpeedPost. Hong Kong Post also has size limits.

Hongkong Post shipments can be registered or unregistered. The track numbers of registered Hongkong Post international shipments are as follows:

Rx123456789HK - small package;
Cx123456789HK - package from 2-10 kg.

You can use the website to track such shipments.

An example of track numbers for EMS shipments from China:

EE123456789CN;
EA123456789CN;
EV123456789CN;

Sub-series EX-EZ can only be used for postage within one country.

According to statistics, Singapore Post takes longer than HongKongPost, but less than ChinaPost. Singapore Post registered mail items are assigned a unique track number, which looks like this - Rx123456789SG.

Singapore Post main tracking site - , Singapore Speedpost (EMS) - .

Private express delivery services

Track numbers of postal items, private express delivery services, such as:

FedEx;
Aramex;
HHEXP;
FLYT;
XRU etc.

YANWEN LOGISTICS

This is a logistics company in China. YANWEN Logistics shipments are tracked only in the territory of the sending country. As soon as the parcel leaves the country, the track number will not be tracked. As a rule, YANWEN Logistics track numbers begin with the Latin letters SN, PK, UA, etc., followed by 10 or 9 digits and at the end two Latin letters YP.

YANWEN Logistics shipments can be tracked on the website

A track code (tracking number, postal identifier, tracking number, tracker) is a unique code that allows you to track the movement of a postal item around the country / world.
According to the regulations of the "Universal Postal Union", the track number (postal item identifier) consists of 2 Latin letters, 9 numbers and 2 Latin letters indicating the country of the sender.

The first letter serves as an indicator of the type of shipment.
The second letter is used to indicate the type of shipment, for example: air, sea, railway or as a regular letter.
The last two letters indicate the sender's country.

Options for designating the type of departure:

"C" - an ordinary parcel (more than 2 kg)

"R" - registered letter (less than 2 kg)

"L" - ordinary (express) letter, tracks starting with this letter are not tracked

"E" - express shipment (EMS), the second letter is ordinal

"V" - insured letter

"A" - letter, not tracked and not insured

"ZA...HK" - Aliexpress innovation ... With tracking only in China. (2 statuses are possible from the PR; "reception" and "arrival at the place of delivery." But these departures are very often erroneously marked - Received)

Track numbers that start with LJ or LC are sent by USPS First Class Mail / USPS Priority Flat rate Envelope and cannot be tracked.

How can I find out where my package is?

In order to track and find out where your parcel is, just go to the site " Track24" and enter her email ID in the empty search box.

Click on the button - To track the package, and you will almost instantly find out where and when your parcel went, and where it is at the moment.

Sending a parcel by Russian Post

The Russian postal identifier (RPO) consists of 14 numbers and is located on the receipt issued upon receipt of the postal item.
It looks like this: 6201035400541 5

Enter in the tracking field without brackets and spaces: 62010354005415 .

Receiving a parcel by Russian Post

After your parcel has arrived / arrived at your post office, you will immediately receive a "Notice" on the mail about the arrival of the parcel in your name

If you order a lot of parcels from the "aliexpress" website, you can find out what exactly arrived to you by the track number that is indicated in your Postal Notice.

How can I find out what's in the package?

In order to find out what exactly came to you from the site Aliexpress, you just need to go to "MY ORDERS", then open additional menu filters by clicking More filters

And we will see the field for input track number, which is indicated in your notice.

Fill out and click the button Search

And we will immediately see what exactly came to you from China.

When flying your parcel from one country to another, the weight may differ by a couple of grams. And that's okay...

Postage tracking. With parcels sent within the country, everything is more or less clear: at any time you can write or call the sender and (or) by mail and in your native language to find out any question. The postal item sent within Russia has a 14-digit code, which consists only of numbers. Example: 19208347377612.

With orders sent from foreign online stores, everything is a little more complicated. Until the international mail reaches the recipient, it is processed by the postal services of at least two states and passes through two customs - on export from the seller's country and on import in the recipient's country.

Let's try to figure out what international postal items are, what the track number looks like, what stages an international postal item goes through until it reaches the addressee and where to track it.

International mail is conventionally divided into two broad categories:
small package and parcel. A small package differs from a parcel in weight, everything that weighs less than 2kg is a small package, everything that is more than 2kg is a parcel.

Postal items can be registered and unregistered. The movement of the first can be tracked by the track number, the movement of the second cannot be tracked, this applies to both parcels and small packages. It should be noted that postal items sent by international private courier delivery services (DHL, Fedex UPS, etc.) are always registered and, accordingly, have a tracking number. The movement of such parcels can be tracked on the website of the respective courier service. If the goods are sent by EMS express service, then the parcel will be registered, but a small package may not be.

It is advisable to place an order with sellers who send the goods in a registered postal item (they give out a track number). This does not affect the delivery speed in any way, but for the recipient it is much calmer, more convenient, and if something goes wrong, then it is easier to find the postal item in this case.

An international postal item is assigned a 13-digit code, which consists of four Latin letters (two at the beginning, two at the end of the track number) and 9 digits between them. The track number is assigned to the postal item by the postal service of the country from which it is sent. Examples of international track numbers:

RB520579731CN - Postal item from China (Registered Small Packet).
СQ630697711CN - postal item from China (parcel).
EE564518664GB is a postal item from the UK. Sent by express mail EMS.
LK172747585US - Mail from the USA (small package without tracking).
RJ361456831GB - UK Mail (Small Trackable Packet).

The last two letters in the track number indicate the country from which the mail was sent. It should be noted that after the arrival (import) of an unregistered international postal item in Russia, the Russian Post assigns its own internal track number for tracking, like RAххххххххRU. This track number is not available for the recipient and is intended only for internal accounting of international mail and subsequent settlements with the postal service of the country of origin.
Very often people ask: The seller writes that the delivery is free - is it true or not? I ordered the product, paid for its cost and delivery. Is this shipping cost only within China (US, UK, etc.)? And how much will delivery cost in Russia? At our post office, upon receipt, will you have to pay anything extra?

The recipient does not need to pay extra for delivery, the seller pays everything when he sends the parcel in his country, and the postal services of the country of the sender and the recipient only then carry out mutual settlements between themselves.

The track number of the postal item is assigned by postal services in accordance with the rules of the International Postal Union (standard S10) and, as mentioned above, consists of 13 characters (four Latin letters and nine digits).
The first two letters (necessarily uppercase) indicate the type of postal item.
The most common combinations in the track number look like this:

The combination of letters from EA to EZ (the second letter can be any of the Latin alphabet) is a registered international postal item (you can track the movement) sent by the EMS express service (the first letter of the track number, in this case corresponds to the first letter of the name of the postal service).

The combination of letters from LA to LZ is an unregistered international postal item, weighing less than 2 kg - a small package. No traceability.

The combination of letters from RA to RZ is a registered international postal item, weighing less than 2 kg - a small package. Trackable. The first letter "R" corresponds to the first letter of the English word "Registered", which means "registered" in translation.

The combination of letters from CA to CZ is a registered international postal item, weighing more than 2 kg is a parcel. Trackable.

After the first two Latin capital letters, nine digits go to the track number.
The first eight digits are a unique number, the last ninth digit serves as a control and is calculated using certain mathematical formulas from the first eight.

The track number is closed by two capital Latin letters, which indicate the country from which the mail is sent. The combination of these letters complies with the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code. The most common ones are: CN (China), SG (Singapore), HK (Hong Kong), GB (UK), CA (Canada), DE (Germany), FR (France), IT (Italy), US (USA) , JP (Japan). It should be noted that the country of the recipient is not indicated in the track number.

You can download an Excel file (taken from the website of the postal service) with which you can check the correctness of the track number of the parcel, as well as calculate the verification code from the first eight digits of the postal item.

Attention! Track numbers of postal items, private express delivery services (DHL, FedEx, UPS, etc.) are not subject to the International Postal Union standard and may contain any combination of letters and numbers.

Stages of movement of international mail

Before an international postal item reaches the recipient, it goes through several stages. The first stage is the reception in the country of the sender, followed by sorting. If the sender is far from the international exchange point (customs), then the postal item may go through several sorting points.
Then comes customs clearance and export to the country of delivery. The next stage is import in the country of the recipient, then passing through the international exchange point (inspection and clearance by the customs service). If the customs has no complaints, then the postal item goes to the sorting point (sometimes several sorting points go through), from where it is already sent to the recipient's post office.
All stages of the movement of a registered international postal item are tracked using a track number. Below is a real example of such tracking. This is how it looks on the Russian Post website.

Below is another example. As you can see, in both cases, the postal items were sent from China, only in the first example, in the very top line, you can see when the parcel was accepted for shipment by China Post (the information appeared immediately after the seller sent the parcel), and in the second, the information appeared only after import to Russia. What it depends on is not clear, but both of these options are quite possible. It is also possible that postal items will be "imported" in different cities. In the first example, the postal item was imported in the city of Moscow, the second in the city of Petrozavodsk. There is also the city of Bryansk, St. Petersburg.

Please note that in the first example, 1.5 months have passed between sending the postal item from the seller's country to importing it into the recipient's country. This period, of course, is very long and this is more an exception than a rule (in this case, the sending of the parcel coincided with the beginning of the Chinese New Year). It happens that the postal item is moving, but the post office does not enter data on its movement on time.

In practice, it can take from one week to 1.5 months from receiving a postal item to importing it into the recipient's country. It is during this period of time that the information is not updated and it seems to the recipient that the seller deceived him or the package was lost somewhere and something needs to be done urgently. Particularly impatient begin to open disputes and make claims to the seller. Unfortunately, neither the seller (sender) nor the buyer (recipient) can influence the speed of mail and customs service, so if there is no information about the postal item for a long time, then it is better to be patient and wait a bit. You will have time to open a dispute and make a claim to the seller, the main thing is not to miss the deadline for delivery, after which the transaction is closed as completed.

Postage delivery times

Delivery times depend on many factors:

Postal items delivered by private courier services (DHL, Fedex, UPS, etc.) have much shorter delivery times compared to regular state mail. The truth and services of such courier services are significantly more expensive.

Larger mailings - parcels sent by regular mail are delivered a little faster than small packages, as they have priority in processing.

The speed of delivery of international mail items depends on the country of sending. IN different countries ah, the postal service has different target delivery times and different mail processing technology.

The speed of postal services depends on the time of year. Or rather, not from the time of year, but from those passing in the country national holidays. As a rule, for postal services around the world, the most difficult period is new year holidays and it is not necessarily only the end of December and the beginning of January.
For example, in China, they celebrate New Year according to the lunar calendar and the New Year holidays they last almost the entire February. If you are not ready to wait a long time for a parcel, then it is better to refrain from ordering in China during this period.

In practice, in a non-peak period, the delivery time for international postal items sent by ordinary state. mail to Russia, can be from three weeks to one month.

Postage tracking. Where can I get a track number?

The track number of the parcel can be obtained in several ways:

If you are the sender of the parcel, then the track number of the parcel will be given (indicated on the receipt) at the post office where you sent it.

If you are a recipient of a postal item (buyer of an online store), you can see the track number in your account of the trading platform where you made the order. Also, the track number of the parcel can be sent in a letter to your email address. Often stores duplicate these two methods. There are also online stores that send a track number only after you ask them about it. Note that the track number is given not after payment for the order, but after it has been sent. An example of how the track number is indicated in Chinese trading platform aliexpress.

And so the track number is indicated on the Chinese trading platform dhgate.

It should be noted that the track number does not begin to show information about the movement of the parcel immediately, but only a few days after it was sent. You also need to keep in mind that postal services can enter information about the movement of the parcel with a slight delay (sometimes with a big one). In this case, you just need to be patient and wait a bit.

Where to track the movement of the postal item

The main source of information about the movement of postal items are the websites of postal services. Each postal service on the site has a special page where you can “break through” the track number and see information about the movement of the parcel.
There are also numerous third-party parcel tracking services where you can check the track numbers of various postal services from around the world.

It is up to you to use the official website of the postal service or a third-party mail tracking service. Both of them have their pros and cons. Personally, I always use only the official websites of postal services.

To check the track number of the parcel, you need to enter it in the appropriate field on the website of the postal service. Latin letters in the track number must be written in capitals. An example, a form for checking the track number on the Russian Post website.

The process of checking track numbers on the websites of postal services in other countries of the world is almost the same.

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