[En-Nut-Discussion] Ethernut board order problem

[Harald Kipp]

Hi Kevin,

Kevin Rock wrote:
> I was told my Ethernut board I had ordered on the 9th of October was going to ship on the 11th of October and shipping would take 5 business days.  I have not received the board yet and have not received any replies from anyone at Ethernut over the last three days.  Are they still in business?  Does anyone know how to contact them about shipping problems?  

Fortunately we are still in business. :-) Ute sent you the packet ID and 
she just told me, that you finally received your board. Fine.

Although off topic, let me explain the problem here. It may be of 
general interest. We typically ship with DHL, which is actually the 
former Deutsche Post and must not be mixed with DHL Express. Unlike the 
latter or UPS/Fedex, DHL provides no full tracking. Instead the packet 
is passed to the national post service of the destination country, where 
it gets an ID. You need to contact the local post office in your country 
with this ID, if the packet doesn't arrive in time or seems to be lost.

If the packet can't be located, we can ask DHL to trace it. However, 
this is again passed to the post office of the destination country and 
may take many weeks or months until the result is returned to us. 
Usually we ship a replacement without waiting for this. In many cases 
customers ended up with two boards, either returning one or paying the 
second afterwards.

Anyway, only very few packets got lost. Shipping by DHL takes about 2 to 
3 business days to most European countries, 1 week to the US, as in your 
case and about 2 weeks elsewhere. From time to time the transfer is 
delayed, which is out of our control. If you want to play safe, we also 
offer express shipping with full tracking. Unfortunately the rates of 
DHL Express, UPS and Fedex are very high in Germany, so it makes sense 
only, if you are in urgent need, order for more than a few hundred bucks 
or if you are located in a less well organized country.

Also check our distributor list at
http://egnite.de/index.php?id=53

I hope you will have some fun with the board, which compensates the long 
waiting time a bit,

Harald