As a regular AliExpress international user, you might have seen the “Processing at sorting center” tracking status preceded by the town in which the package is.
Now that you are here, you could be wondering what that update means, why your package has been stuck on that status for days, or you might just wish to get informed.
This is a common tracking update and be with us as we dig deeper and look at the status in its entirety.
What Does Processing At Sorting Center Mean?
When AliExpress says that a package is processing at sorting center, it means that it is getting inspected, registered, and routed to the relevant departure transport hub.
AliExpress usually lets recipients know which sorting centers are processing their packages by beginning with the Cities.
For example, you could see, “[Shatian Town] Processing at sorting center” to mean that the package is getting processed in the sorting facility in Shatian Town. In fact, we covered all the updates you can expect to see on the tracking page when your package is at the Shatian Town sorting facility.
How Long Does Processing At Sorting Center Take?
The “Processing at sorting center” AliExpress tracking status takes between a couple of hours to a month to get updated.
The exact time it takes to update depends on issues such as the amount of volumes getting sorted, the number of staff, and the optimal functioning of the tracking page.
Why Is My Package Stuck On “Processing At Sorting Center” For Long?
Yours Is A Bigger Package
We have seen incidents where packages that had “oversize” issues stayed for longer in AliExpress sorting centers.
I don’t know the logic behind this, but smaller packages get sorted and delivered faster than the huge ones.
As it seems, AliExpress staff keep huge packages aside, work on the smaller ones first, and get back to the bigger ones when they are sufficient to fill a container.
The Package Got Lost
While AliExpress doesn’t lose packages as much, we can’t rule out the possibility of your package getting lost maybe in the conveyor belts, especially for smaller packages.
By the time they retrieve it, it can be a couple of weeks later, and in all these instances there isn’t a relevant scan for you.
Just so you know, package updates happen when scans have been made. If there isn’t a scan due to a misplaced package, expect no update.
The Sorting Center Got Shut Off
Not to be pessimistic or anything, but we don’t know if we will face another lockdown in the foreseeable future.
Well, we saw many facilities including package sorting centers getting shut off while at the height of COVID-19.
In instances where there are lockdowns or shut-offs due to say staff strikes, it’s possible for package statuses not to change for several days or weeks.
Since the packages are already at those sorting facilities, scanning will only happen when they re-open. Shut-offs are a leading reason why package statuses don’t change for days.
What Do I Do When My Package Is “Processing At Sorting Center” For Long?
When the tracking status doesn’t change from “Processing at sorting center” for long, we recommend that you get in touch with the seller for an amicable solution, especially when it’s already past the estimated delivery date.
You can also use third-party tracking sites such as 17Track and Parcels App to look into the real status of your parcel. We find them more detailed than the default AliExpress tracking page.
