English (US)
Hello everyone,
- Still not getting your package?
- Want to change delivery address?
- Got the wrong or incomplete good?
- Or worse, got scammed?
Sit down and relax. After finishing reading this letter, you will find the answers. In the following, we will reintroduce our service and answer some of the frequently asked questions about our role and legitimacy. Take a few minutes to read. You will find it worth it.
1. So, what is this letter about?
For a long time, 17TRACK has been misunderstood as a shipping company or an online store, and people keep coming to us complaining about lost deliveries and scams. At first, there were some, and later on, more and more people are getting confused about our role.
Angry consumers leave bad reviews for us in different places, and we had to face this awkward situation where we are charged for something we are not guilty of. So here we are, making this public letter, to make things right.
Right now, you must be thinking: If you are not a shipping company, what else can you be? They gave me a link to your website and a tracking number! Well, well, bear with me for a moment. We will get to that. Actually, we've prepared a series of articles later to explain the situation. But before that, let me ask you some questions: who are “they” and why would they give you a link to us? What makes them happy to do so? Quite a thinker, isn’t it?
2. Who are we and what do we do?
We are a group of passionate people with different expertise aiming at one shared goal: to make the international shipping process more accessible and traceable for anyone who wants to know "where is my package".
The founders of 17TRACK were some of the earliest pioneers in the international e-commerce business in China. Think about it. Almost 10 years ago, the world wasn’t as connected and digital as it is now. It was quite an endeavor to track packages sent to different countries with various shipping carriers.
So, a simple idea came out: what if we build a tool to display package info from different carriers and show them in one place? In this way, people don’t need to go through all the trouble visiting different carriers’ websites to track their packages. That’s the birth of 17TRACK, and ever since, we’ve been working towards that goal.
3. Is our service legit? How does it work?
Yes, it is legit. But probably not the way you think it is. Simply put, we do not deliver your package, nor do we sell any goods to you from any store. We are an information provider specialized in shipment tracking. We have various levels of service, free or paid, for both everyday consumers and enterprise users.
How do we track the package for you? It’s simple. We are not the source of the tracking info. What we do is to act as a third party and carry the info from various sources to our website, without adding extra interpretation, nor any change of the content, for the sake of 100% authenticity to the origin. The info fundamentally comes from the carriers, who ship your orders. Here is an example that helps you understand our role.
It’s like when you search on Google. Say, you want to find some articles to read, and it gives you the results to choose from. Then you pick one and start to read. Not in a few minutes, you find the article to be boring and you have to stop. You may be like, "oh man, the author could work on the writing skills." But you don't blame Google, right? Because the search engine has no say in how people write an article. The same goes for our service. Since we are not the ones who create the tracking info, we don't get to control the content. The carriers are the source.
If so, how can you get your package back or get a refund? If your package is not delivered, the best way is to contact your seller or the shipping company. If you don't know how to contact the carrier, we are more than happy to help. We will also create more articles on this topic. Don't forget, you are always welcome to find our service team at serv@17track.net.
4. If it’s free, how do we keep it running?
For most daily online shoppers, our website is entirely free for small and medium amount tracking. And we intend to keep it that way while maintaining basic sources of income such as ads and donations. As part of our efforts to reach our goal, we want to make our service as easy to access and costless as possible for people who need it.
On top of that, we also have options for advanced users like batch tracking and Shopify integration, which are paid services. Just not long ago, we made public our API service, a programming interface for software and system developers to connect to and use our tracking data. All these create a healthy, sustainable, and legit business model.
With the income, we are way beyond making our ends meet. We don't need to be involved in any scams for a profit. We are a legitimate company registered in Shenzhen, the capital of technology in China. All this info can be found online, search all you want.
5. Why didn’t we say so before?
In fact, we’ve been telling people who we are all the time. If you send an email to our service team, we always tell you our role and how you can find your package. But we seldom speak out in the public.
Part of the reason is that we want our service to speak for itself. For years we’ve been focusing on building better services and didn’t have much time to deal with the rumors and untrue accusations against us. We believe, for those who know how it is, they will always support us for the quality service we provide. But for those who don’t, we do what we can and hope for the best.
With time passing, we started to notice more abnormal activities in the market and how people misunderstand our service to a point that our public image is quite affected. With enough bad rumors, it is possible to ruin a good person for things he didn’t do. So, we decided to take more proactive actions.
6. What happens next? Why is it important to you?
To change the status quo, we have prepared many plans this year to facilitate interactions with our users, in the following aspects:
- User caring program, scam-proof education. Articles will be released to give out knowledge about package tracking in general, including how things work, how you can find your package, and how to avoid scams on the internet. This way you can build a strong defense while shopping online.
- More brand publicity, hello to a greater world. Adjustments will be made to our user guidance strategy for a clearer convey of our service concept and who we are. More interactions on our website and social media, starting from Facebook.
- Stronger global coverage, upgrade of our service outreach. We’ve established a new office in the U.K. to set off the geographic discrepancy and difference in time zone. This will give us more active support time to global users and a faster response.
We will do anything we can to help you, and we believe good service and integrity will help us go a long way. Users like you are the greatest assets we have. Stay tuned to our Facebook post, alright? We will create more useful content in the future.
Have a good day and be well.
Team 17TRACK.