Order New Mac Online - Why Does Delivery Take 9 Days Not 1-3?

As we are all other users just like you, there is no one here who can answer your question. You might have ordered a custom configuration or Apple's stock was low/out, either of which would result in a longer shipping period. The usual ad for 2 day shipping is quite generic; after quite a few online orders, I've only had one or two which actually shipped within 2 days. You'd really need to ask the Apple store for the reasons yours is taking longer.

Out of curiosity: you said you ordered online, but you also said you paid cash? How did you manage that?

Ahh, thanks - had no idea you could do that!

Hi Brad and welcome to Apple Support Communities, babowa is correct in that if you make an order on the Apple Online Store (or via telephone) that custom orders can take considerably more time to ship.

The reason is simple.

"Stock-built" machines (those with the default configuration are kept ready to ship directly from Apple in the country they are bought in in almost every case. If you customise your order, give it a larger hard drive or faster processor for example, then your Mac most likely will have to be configured at the factory when it is manufactured.

This can easily add several days, or with some orders even several weeks to an order's shipping time.

For example when I ordered my Mac Pro, I could have ordered a base configuration and had my machine the next day, however I wanted a better graphics card, this added an extra 2 weeks to my product's shipping time.

When you are configuring the product (before you proceed to the payment screen), the "estimated shipping time" should auto update depending upon changes you make to the base configuration, as well as the extra time needed to make those changes to your configuration.

But I know from experience with the Apple Online Store as well as over the phone (technically it uses the same store) that you can always find out the estimated shipping time before you proceed to payment.

As a rule of thumb, any order that has "CTO" at the end means it is not a stock products and will always take longer to ship because it must be assembled first.

I hope this answers you question completely.

Regards,

Peter.

It is not a "Stock" model, you've added software onto it to ship with it, that explains the extra time, as I said "CTO" defines this, that is "Configured To Order".

The "1-3 days" is only an estimate, there are many factors that come into play, stock at the warehouse, and shipping has dozens of reasons alone why it may be delayed. – It's generally accurate, but sometimes delays just happen.

The reason this order is taking longer is because you've asked for software to be loaded onto it as well.

This really is something that contacting Apple directly about is going to yield better results with, since this is a user forum, users on here will give you pretty much the same response no matter how many times you ask. – Apple may be able to give you a more detailed answer, but my thoughts are they will tell you exactly what I just have, the time specified on the site is an estimate, not a definite value.

As I said a CTO order cannot ship from the stock available at a warehouse.

All stock is not kept in the US, whoever told you that hasn't got a clue what they're talking about.

The truth is that most countries where Apple products are sold have they're own national warehouse or warehouses where Apple stores stock versions of their most popular products (the iMac is one), and also an order takes under an hour to process, if you order early enough in a day a product will even ship smae day.

It does depend where an order comes from, if your country's warehouse does not stock that particular product then of course it will take longer.

1-3 days is accurate in most countries actually.

As I said you have a CTO products, your order even confirms this, that will of course take longer to ship.

Actually,the info on the sales site is quite accurate. It quite clearly states that it will SHIP in 1-3 days, this does not indicate in any way that it will arrive in 1-3 days.

brad_dalton wrote:

The time on the site is inaccurate and misleading because they want you to think you'll get your product within 1 - 3 days. If they stated 1-3 weeks, they would lose sales.

The truth is, they don't process the order for delivery until 3 days after the payment has been made.

FWIW, nowhere does it state your product will arrive in 1-3 days. It says it will ship in 1-3 days. And of course they won't ship it before the product is paid for. Something you left out is the time it took for your bank to send Apple the money for the order. Was it within the hour? 24 hours? 2 days? You left that out. But under no circumstance would an order arrive in 1-3 days. You may have inferred that somehow, most people wouldn't.

brad_dalton wrote:

Yes, it only states it will ship with 1 - 3 days however thats misleading as some buyers will expect that to mean it will be delivered within 1 - 3 days.

If someone believes that "ships" and "arrives" means the same thing, that is a problem with their vocabulary. Not Apple's.