Japan Post delays

railwayman3 · May 13, 2020

I think that all International carriage (and some domestic mail) to here in the UK is all over the place. I ordered two (not photographic) items from separate reputable companies in Germany a month ago, one arrived by DHL in less than 2 days, the other (Royal Mail) still hasn't arrived. I probably wouldn't order anything important internationally at the moment, unless from an established trusted company. preferably with tracking.

abruzzi · May 14, 2020

a bizzarre development. The $99 used bag bellows (with free shipping) I purchased wasn't shipped by Japan Post as I expected. The seller shipped it FedEx. Overnight. It technically is taking two days to arrive, but thats only because of the international date line. I cant imagine overnight shipping from Japan to the US costs less than $50, of half what I paid. I was expecting to wait 30 days or more.

Peter Schrager · May 14, 2020

fedEx out of Japan to Connecticut took 4 days....

Horatio · May 14, 2020

Peter Schrager said:
fedEx out of Japan to Connecticut took 4 days....

FedEx and DHL are not EMS, which many Japanese dealers prefer. There was no alternate shipping offered for my purchases.

mooseontheloose · May 15, 2020

Horatio said:
FedEx and DHL are not EMS, which many Japanese dealers prefer. There was no alternate shipping offered for my purchases.

You're right. But since this delay I've noticed that many more are offering FedEx, when it was never an option before. That won't help your packages stuck in limbo however.

ozphoto · May 15, 2020

Think it's a worldwide thing - here in AUS, it took 3 weeks to have a parcel delivered 12km away in the same city! Currently, our postal service is attempting to process in excess of 2 million parcels/letters every day - this is even greater than what they usually process during our busy Christmas period.

I had 2 parcels arrive from the US in the past month - both via FedEx - and they took a little longer than usual: 10 days vs the usual 5, again, it was delayed in Melbourne which is our largest mail/delivery hub.

Yet I'm still waiting on a parcel sent from Portugal - has been over 6 weeks. Given that anything we send from AUS to Portgual is going by seamail, this is not at all surprising, when you consider that due to our borders being closed, the passenger aircraft that usually arrive and depart (and also carry mail deliveries) aren't currently in operation.

I had a seller in Germany cancel an order - they were suddenly no longer accepting post to AUS, the day before, however, had been fine.

And I posted off 3 parcels on April 28 to the UK, Russia and Denmark. Guess what happened? The 29th saw new postal details take hold and those parcels are currently awaiting their international leg. Unfortunately, the Russian parcel now must be sent via seamail - anywhere up to 30 days, and there's absolutely nothing I can do to make changes right now. The only "return to sender" mail being processed, are those parcels/letters that have had their deliveries suspended completely. Everything else is still going out, but delivery times right now are anyone's guess.

Hope it arrives in good time, but these are crazy times and totally out of anyone's control - we just have to sit tight and celebrate when our packages eventually arrive.

abruzzi · May 15, 2020

A few weeks ago I ordered a few lens boards from Camley Photographic in the Uk, and they took a week to arrive, so not all international shipping is messed up. But I may have just got lucky since three lens boards can be packed into a flat envelope, which may get processed differently than boxes.

ColdEye · May 15, 2020

Horatio said:
FedEx and DHL are not EMS, which many Japanese dealers prefer. There was no alternate shipping offered for my purchases.

is yours currently still in customs in Japan? I reached out to the seller about this, and he offered to ship it via DHL. It was already in Japan customs but he said he can request it back.

Kino · May 15, 2020

I just got a rangefinder from Japan via DHL; took a week.

jp498 · May 17, 2020

I get big deliveries from Japan about every month.
UPS and Yusen Logistics are who I usually ship with. Yusen warns of going up in cost; DHL has been going up in cost. Apparently not enough flights doing cargo. (Many passenger flights that are not currently happening also carried cargo)

It's basic supply and demand, certainly not fuel prices at the moment.

B.S.Kumar · May 26, 2020

Horatio said:
One seller has agreed to refund, if the item is returned to him. However he has indicated JP is not allowing shippers to request returns of processed packages.

I ship 4 or 5 times a week. JapanPost EMS is usually very efficient but inexplicably, four packages that were shipped well before 24th April (when EMS shipments to the US were completely suspended) were stranded in Osaka Airport after clearing customs. I have no idea why they were not shipped earlier, but these are trying times for the postal employees and couriers, and my customers were very understanding about the delay. But I wanted to ensure that my customers got their items and retrieved these packages from JapanPost Osaka a few days ago. I filled up some forms and sent them to my local post office, who passed on the request to Osaka. It took two days to get them back.They have all been re-shipped via a courier who partners with UPS. Deliveries to most countries take about a week.

Kumar

Horatio · May 26, 2020

ColdEye said:
is yours currently still in customs in Japan? I reached out to the seller about this, and he offered to ship it via DHL. It was already in Japan customs but he said he can request it back.

I really don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine, but one seller said he could not retrieve the shipment. It has not been returned to him. Perhaps my items are packed away with the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Lol

Horatio · May 26, 2020

B.S.Kumar said:
I ship 4 or 5 times a week. JapanPost EMS is usually very efficient but inexplicably, four packages that were shipped well before 24th April (when EMS shipments to the US were completely suspended) were stranded in Osaka Airport after clearing customs. I have no idea why they were not shipped earlier, but these are trying times for the postal employees and couriers, and my customers were very understanding about the delay. But I wanted to ensure that my customers got their items and retrieved these packages from JapanPost Osaka a few days ago. I filled up some forms and sent them to my local post office, who passed on the request to Osaka. It took two days to get them back.They have all been re-shipped via a courier who partners with UPS. Deliveries to most countries take about a week.

Kumar

Thanks Kumar. Perhaps I will pass this information along to my sellers.

Horatio · Jun 17, 2020

Thought I'd post an update. The first order I placed (March) will arrive tomorrow. I asked for (and received) a refund on the second item (shipped early April), but it may arrive in a few weeks. If it does, I'll have to arrange to make payment. I won't mind if that's the case, as it was a 50mm lens for my Bronica SQ.

Horatio · Jun 22, 2020

Second order is stuck in Chicago. It’s been there a week. Merde. At least it’s somewhere in the US.

fdonadio · Jun 22, 2020

Horatio said:
Second order is stuck in Chicago. It’s been there a week. Merde. At least it’s somewhere in the US.

Horatio,

Look on the bright side.

I bought some stuff late last year from Kumar and he had sent the package to me through EMS. Because of a glitch in the Brazilian postal service website, I didn’t get an important piece of information when tracking the package and it was returned to Kumar, in Japan. The round trip took over a month!

Kumar got the package and was willing to resend it, but since I had a trip to Europe on the last week of February, I asked him to wait until I got back home, on the second week of March.

Then came the Coronavirus and I had to come back in a hurry. When I talked to Kumar again, JapanPost wasn’t accepting packages to Brazil anymore.

Now my film is in Kumar’s fridge and we’re patiently waiting until EMS service is reestablished.

I could get the package through DHL, FedEx or UPS, but Brazilian law is really stupid: if I get the package through “regular” mail service, I pay 60% import taxes “only”; but if I get the package through a courier service, I pay the 60% import tax AND a surcharge of 18%. And these 18% are calculated over the goods value plus the 60% import tax, so the total tax is more like 88.8%.

Good grief!

- Flavio

Horatio · Jun 23, 2020

Sorry to hear of your troubles, Flavio. Yes, things could definitely be worse. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much of a delay when it got to the US, but perhaps that’s naive of me. I had the first package just a couple of days after arriving onshore. Most of our USPS shipments have been routine during the pandemic. Perhaps our experience is not the norm. We have, however, chosen to ship timely items (gifts, etc.) by UPS.

I guess things are not going well at the Chicago USPS.

Kodachromeguy · Jun 23, 2020

B.S.Kumar said:
I ship 4 or 5 times a week. JapanPost EMS is usually very efficient but inexplicably, four packages that were shipped well before 24th April (when EMS shipments to the US were completely suspended) were stranded in Osaka Airport after clearing customs. I have no idea why they were not shipped earlier, but these are trying times for the postal employees and couriers, and my customers were very understanding about the delay. But I wanted to ensure that my customers got their items and retrieved these packages from JapanPost Osaka a few days ago. I filled up some forms and sent them to my local post office, who passed on the request to Osaka. It took two days to get them back.They have all been re-shipped via a courier who partners with UPS. Deliveries to most countries take about a week.

Kumar

I can confirm that a package that Mr. Kumar sent me in May reached rural Mississippi in about a week. The UPS driver delivered it to my porch. Thank you for the super service!

Japan Post delays

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