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Today’s post was not one I expected to write, because I have some basic expectations for large retailers in 2021, and I am sort of stunned when they miss the mark in such a strange way.

We’ve had a lot of snowfall this year, and it’s become very difficult to find salt to de-ice the sidewalks and driveway. My husband ordered some on HomeDepot.com as we couldn’t find any in stores.

We received only part of his order (and that’s probably a whole other post, because the other half of the order is still missing), and I took his order information to try and track the other half.

This is problematic in a few ways.

  • The first bit of this order arrived on February 18
  • There is no indication on this page (including the area outside of this screenshot) that the order is shipping in separate parts.

In the meantime, I have higher hopes for that link to track my package, so I click it, expecting an embedded page on HomeDepot.com with tracking details. Instead…

You have to be kidding me. A quick Google indicates that HomeDepot.com is generating over $100 million in sales every year, and they don’t have a direct link for me to track my shipment?!?

At least they have a copy function so I don’t have to highlight the number.

I proceed to copy the number and click the Track Package button.

I am sent to the UPS homepage, which does NOT feature an easy-to-use box where I can simply paste the tracking number.

I had to click “track a package,” and then was taken to a world map to pick my area of service before I was able to paste the tracking number.

When I did so, I was failed again.

The tracking number is invalid.

This is brutal. The whole experience was clunky and has entirely too many steps, and I take all of those steps and end up with a failed tracking number.

It’s very simple. You visit your order page, and if there’s a tracking number, you click it and it takes you to a pop-up or a new window/tab with details on your shipment. Not 14 steps between seeing the number and seeing the tracking information.

I would like to also note that at no point did my husband receive a shipping confirmation email from HomeDepot.com. It is definitely possible that this went into spam (although he received his order confirmation email), but it is potentially another issue. Is HomeDepot.com not set up to send emails for partial shipments? If so, they need to fix it immediately.

The second half of the shipment showed up weeks later, and again, no shipping email was sent when it was on its way. I hope that HomeDepot.com can get it together and improve the order tracking experience for their customers.