Multiply delays of Blue's order

What if multiple factors causes serious shipping delays?

Though it rarely happens, but Blue unfortunately got into this dilemma, and we went together with him through this.

In our 20+ years transactions, this was an extreme case, because it involved nearly all the force majeure factors:
1)Customs holding from export side
2)Carrier halt due to peak season over-loading
3)Weather Disaster
4)Customs examination from import side
Those factors piled up, and caused the last box of his order delayed for nearly 5 months.

Security Holding from China Customs in October

We customized an Eames style lounge chair in taller version with walnut veneer and off white italian leather for Blue in September of 2017.
After the production and quality examination, we got the confirmation from Blue to dispatch.
The chair was packed into two large boxes, and first one was dispatched it on 14th of Sept, 2017

To avoid any problems from customs, we dispatched the second one 1 week later, on 19th of Sept, 2017.

But since then, the tracking information showed second parcel was not moving any more.

We checked with the carriers, and found the parcel was stuck with China customs. Why? Because the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing from October 18 to 24,2017. The customs had enhanced the security inspection for outgoing parcels across the board, especially the large ones.

So we retrived the parcel from the customs,and re-dispatched on 20th of November.

Over-loading problems from carrier in November and December

However, with only one month away from Christmas, the shipping peak season arrived, and the shipping capacity became extremely tight.
All the carriers faced serious over-loading problems, and began to reject large parcels. As a result, we had to retrieve the parcel again, divided this large box into two smaller boxes, changed a more expensive shipping method to get them onboard ASAP.

Weather disaster from Juno storms in January

We thought as long as the parcels got onboard, then they would arrive quickly with the flights.
However in January of 2018, USA had Juno storm disaster, which caused all the international flights seriously delayed for nearly 3 weeks.

At the end of January, finally the last box arrived at the customs, and was expected to go through the customs within 2 weeks and then delivered at the customer.

2 weeks' holding from USA customs in Feburary

After the long-time exam of nearly 2 weeks from US customs, the last box was finally out of all the procedures, and then shipped in the fastest method to the door address of the consignee.
To compensate Blue, we shipped together with a new lamp.