Here are the FedEx Tracking Details
from the $30 Apple Store order
that got shipped from China.

I crushed one of my iPhone earbuds the other day in the parking lot of BJ's Warehouse Club in Langhorne, PA. I dropped my headphones while trying to load the car during a shopping trip with Kathleen and Jimmy. I apparently ran the earbud over with at least one of the wheels of my 2007 Honda Accord.

It stinks to have an iPhone with headphones that don't work properly. I don't have the money or the time to decide which aftermarket headphones are actually better than the Apple headphones. So, I took the easy way out and ordered a set of replacements from the Apple Online Store for about $30.

Here's where the story gets interesting.

A lot of times when I order something from the Apple Online Store it ships from a warehouse somewhere in Pennsylvania, so I get it quite quickly. This time, however, Apple decided to vend this item from their supplier in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in China. I have the FedEx Tracking Data to prove it:

• Nov 14, 2007
• 12:29AM | Package data transmitted to FedEx
• 9:45AM | Picked up | SHENZHEN CN
• 2:11PM | Left origin | SHENZHEN CN
• 3:55PM | In transit | LANTAU ISLAND HK
• 1:51PM | Departed Fedex location | ANCHORAGE, AK
• Nov 15, 2007
• 12:10AM | Arrived at FedEx location | INDIANAPOLIS, IN
• ...
• 6:13AM | At dest sort facility | PHILADELPHIA, PA
• 7:59AM | At local FedEx facility | BRISTOL, PA
• 8:07AM | On FedEx vehicle for delivery | BRISTOL, PA
• 9:39AM | Delivered | NEWTOWN, PA

Of course the packaged gained a day crossing the International Date Line.

FedEx delivered the package to my house in Newtown, PA before 10:30AM on Thursday, one day before they promised. All this package contains is a set of iPhone replacement headphones. I got free shipping on this order.

Imagine how much it would normally cost an individual to ship a package of any size via FedEx from Shenzhen to here at this speed?