Ground shipping is measured in business days and geography, so the honest answer is a range rather than a number. Within a province, a day or two is typical. Between neighbouring provinces, expect a few days. Coast to coast — British Columbia to the Maritimes, say — think closer to a week, since your package genuinely travels that distance by road. Weekends don’t count, which catches people out: something shipped Friday effectively starts Monday. Winter weather and peak season add to all of it. What tells you more than any estimate is the last scan location, because once a package reaches the terminal serving your area, delivery is usually next-day regardless of how far it came.

Either, depending on the service and whether a signature was required. Ground deliveries to homes often get a second attempt automatically, while packages needing a signature more commonly head to a depot after the first miss. Whichever happens, you should find a notice at the door telling you which, and the same handover shows in your tracking history. The detail worth acting on quickly is that attempts aren’t unlimited — after the last one, your package starts back to the shipper. So if you see that first attempt in your updates and know you’ll be out again tomorrow, that’s the moment to arrange a collection rather than hoping the next attempt lands better.

Your notice names the depot holding your package, and that’s the one to go to — it’s assigned by delivery route rather than by proximity, so it isn’t always the closest on a map. Bring photo identification and either the notice or your tracking number. Depots are working freight facilities rather than retail counters, which means industrial-park locations, weekday hours and sometimes an earlier closing time than you’d hope, so check before setting off. If someone else is collecting, they’ll generally need written authorization and their own ID. Call ahead if the package is large — it saves discovering it won’t fit in your car.

Ground service runs on business days, so Saturday and Sunday deliveries aren’t the norm. That matters most for expectations: a package showing two days of transit on a Friday afternoon isn’t arriving until Tuesday, and a weekend can make a delivery look stalled when it’s simply parked. Depots generally keep the same pattern, so something arriving Friday evening may not be collectable until Monday. Peak season occasionally brings extra operating days, but planning around business days is the safer assumption.

Yes, and route structure rather than distance is the reason. Ground networks serve rural and remote postal codes on less frequent schedules, sometimes handing the final stretch to a partner carrier, which adds both a handover and a day or two beyond what the map suggests. Certain northern and isolated codes are served weekly rather than daily. You’ll often see this in your updates as a package sitting at a terminal that isn’t especially near you, waiting for the run that covers your area. Door delivery isn’t guaranteed everywhere either — some remote addresses are served by collection instead. Worth checking with the shipper before ordering anything time-sensitive.

You have some influence, though less than with the consumer-facing carriers. Instructions work best when they travel with the label, which means putting them in the address or delivery-notes field at checkout — buzzer codes, a side door, “leave with reception”. Once a package is moving, contacting the depot handling your area is the practical route, since local staff can pass a message to a driver in a way a national form often can’t. Signature requirements set by the shipper override anything you ask for, so a package marked for signature still needs someone there. And an authorised drop makes the package your risk once it’s left, which is worth weighing on anything valuable.

A day or two of nothing is normal, so there’s little to read into yet. Retailers generate a tracking number when they print the label, which often happens well before the package physically leaves — sometimes a full business day or two before the carrier collects it. Until that first pickup scan there’s genuinely nothing for the network to report. What you want to see is a scan at an originating terminal, after which the record usually becomes steady. If three or four business days pass with no first scan at all, the package probably hasn’t been handed over yet, and the retailer is who to ask, since that’s a warehouse question rather than a carrier one.

Add your number here, switch alerts on, and you’ll hear when your package reaches a depot — which is the moment the collection clock starts, not when a notice reaches your door. That distinction matters, because notices go missing and the window keeps running regardless. It costs nothing and no account is needed to begin. Prefer not to handle numbers at all? Connecting Gmail after a Google sign-in means order confirmations get spotted on their own. Everything else you’re waiting on, from any carrier, sits in the same list — handy in a country where one order can pass between a national carrier and a regional one.

You may also want to explore tracking for these other destinations:

• Got a parcel from Canada? Track it here

• Track parcels going to or from United States

• Check on your Great Britain delivery

• Your China orders, all in one place

• Waiting on something from France?

• Keep an eye on Mexico deliveries

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• See where your Canada Post package is

• Got a Purolator number? Start here

• Check your Landmark Global shipment

• DHL Express updates in one place

• Waiting on FedEx? Track it here

• Track your UPS parcels