What’s the quickest you’ve received your int’l purchase?

[Dusty Negative]

Interesting.

I bought from Alex at Rangefinder.HK. Bought 2 film silver MPs as well as a 35 Summicron within the last 1-2 months, all separate orders. All 3 shipments arrived to California within 2-3 days. Fed Ex is great. Tracking all the way. Alex and M&K photos also ship just as fast and well packed against damage from Hong Kong.

I'll never understand how international shipping works. I ordered some toner from Moersch a couple of months ago, and it took several weeks to arrive. I was able to track it stuck in Frankfurt for over a week. Go figure.

 

[gone]

Don't remember the exact time frames, but stuff from Asia has often showed up at my door even before something that was shipped from a next door state here in the U.S.

Off topic but relevant to a discussion about "go-figure" things was buying California grown fruit and veggies in Florida that were somehow much cheaper and looked better than the identical local items.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Shortest, for the service:

Six days from USA to France by plain ole' Air Parcel post - the cheapest international shipping method. Tracking every step of the way by the French post office. It would have been 5 days, but nobody was home when they first tried to deliver it.

Shenzen to Cleveland Ohio by DHL in 2 days. Other shipments took 4 days.

Longest:

USA to Russia - tracking to London and then to Nairobi, where it fell of the edge of the earth. It did find it's way back 3 months later, declared 'undeliverable' by the Russian post office. Replacement sent to the same address by a freight forwarding company arrived without drama.

Cleveland Ohio to Los Angeles by Priority Mail - Stopped off at Seattle, on to Honolulu and then spent 2 weeks going back and forth between Santa Monica and Bakersfield.

 

[Huss]

I’ve shipped stuff to a buyer here in Oregon - the guilty shall rename anonymous - USPS 2 day priority mail. California to Oregon. Both times it took over a week due to some interesting routing that took the packages far out east before making a left at Albuquerque and back to Oregon.

 

[Kino]

Yeah, USPS loves to take my packages on tours many states away when the straight line delivery should have taken a couple of days maximum.

It used to be I could track the actual progress on their website, but now they only list the package as "in transit" without giving actual locations. Rather than fix the problem, it's easier to hide it.

 

[Huss]

I’ve had USPS ship stuff from San Diego to Los Angeles (when I used northcoast photo) and every single time it would first make a trip to Nevada.

 

[Kino]

Once DC to Richmond VA to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back to Richmond, to Atlanta and back to Richmond and then to central VA and my home.

I kid you not.

I keep threatening to paste an "Express Mail" label on myself and tour the country...

 

[Craig]

Thinking of taking the long route, I bought a car part from Spokane, WA. It went from Spokane to Kentucky, then north across the border to Toronto and across Canada to Calgary. If you took the most direct route, that's about a 420 mile trip, instead it traveled over 4700 miles.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

An item I ordered took 6 days from Japan to NJ including sitting in Louisville KY for 4 days. I have no idea why. Maybe someone was trying it out. Not shown below were the few days it took within Japan to get to Tokyo from another city there.

Location	Date	Local Time	Description
	Tokyo, JP	2023/01/05	19:25	in transit
	Narita, JP	2023/01/05	21:41	in transit
	Anchorage, US	2023/01/05	10:31	in transit
	Anchorage, US	2023/01/05	14:32	in transit
	Louisville, US	2023/01/05	23:18	in transit
	Louisville, US	2023/01/09	12:12	in transit
	Louisville, US	2023/01/09	16:13	in transit
	Newark, US	2023/01/09	18:04	in transit
	Newark, US	2023/01/10	05:32	in transit
	xxxxx, NJ, US	2023/01/10	12:26	Delivered

 

[Maineiac]

several purchases from Japan to Maine, US have been taking about 3 - 5 days lately using FedEx intl express.

I sent a camera part to someone in the UK, It took 3 days to get from to London, where it sat for 2 weeks, then a day to him. turns out there was a postal strike going on when it landed and it sat at the airport collecting dust.

 

[Petrochemist]

Several years back I (in the UK) ordered 2 books from the USA.
The one with the cheaper postage arrived the next day, while the other took months!
Perhaps not quite as bizarre as I've made out as the fast one was light enough to go air mail, while the other was really heavy so crawled round on the surface.

Pre covid I've often had packages from China arrive in a couple of days now it's at least 5 times longer.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Several years back I (in the UK) ordered 2 books from the USA.
The one with the cheaper postage arrived the next day, while the other took months!
Perhaps not quite as bizarre as I've made out as the fast one was light enough to go air mail, while the other was really heavy so crawled round on the surface.

Pre covid I've often had packages from China arrive in a couple of days now it's at least 5 times longer.

US Postal Book rate moves books at a speed that glaciers race past.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Several years back I (in the UK) ordered 2 books from the USA.
The one with the cheaper postage arrived the next day, while the other took months!
Perhaps not quite as bizarre as I've made out as the fast one was light enough to go air mail, while the other was really heavy so crawled round on the surface.

Pre covid I've often had packages from China arrive in a couple of days now it's at least 5 times longer.

I thought the US did away with Air Mail postage because so much of it goes by air anyway.

 

[Tel]

A few years ago (well, more than a few) I bought an LF lens from a seller in Tokyo and It arrived here (NJ) two days later. More recently I bought another lens (smaller) from Japan and it arrived in three days. On December 23 I bought a camera body from a seller in Ukraine; it arrived January 17th. Frankly I'm amazed that Ukraine still has postal service!

 

[alanrockwood]

Not photography equipment or supplies per se, but I bought some musical instruments from a company in Germany (Thomann) that were delivered to my home in the US about three days later.

 

[Petrochemist]

I thought the US did away with Air Mail postage because so much of it goes by air anyway.

The surface mail cost considerably more than the air mail, so it would have been after air mail premiums were charged. IIRC the heavier book was outside the range permitted by printed matter rates. It was years back so I suppose it could have been before the change you are referring to.

 

[chennn]

我在Kamerastore买的镜头一天就从芬兰运到了法国

 

[Tel]

I've had cameras arrive from Japan in 3 days, door to door. By contrast, I bought a camera from someone in Utah and it took two months to get to me.

 

[AnselMortensen]

I have received items from Japan in 3 days.
On April 1st, a seller mailed me a package from Washington DC to California via USPS.
The package has visited Guam and Honolulu, and is still "in transit".
I just hope it doesn't visit Howland Is. to be with Amelia.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I thought the US did away with Air Mail postage because so much of it goes by air anyway.

International US postal parcel service is called, IIRC, "First Class International Air;" such a glimpse of the 1950's, imagining the package is on the same plane as Gene Kelly and his current squeeze.

"Surface Post" has disappeared. If you desire you can still ship by, well, ship, you do have to go through a shipping agent/broker; for a large heavy package it's the way to go if you aren't in a great hurry. The shipping documents are accompanied by unlicked stamps, the whole document package held together with straight pins. Though the crate goes by tramp steamer the documents you need to claim your shipment come by DHL. Straight out of a slightly demented "Passage to India."

I just shipped to Japan by "First Class International Air (r)" - it took 10 days: 4 days circling O'Hare airport (same as I do every time I visit Chicago); one day to get to Japan; 4 days going through customs; and a final 1 day for in-country delivery. There is an international date line in there somewhere - but it will take another cup of morning coffee to figure out if that helps or hurts matters.

 

[MCB18]

I ordered a chimney finder from Japan in the afternoon, got shipping notification that evening, and it got to the Denver by morning. It actually arrived too soon, as I was in class that day, and couldn’t sign for it!

Honorable mention: anything from Ukraine. There is literally a war going on, and yet they are still shipping stuff. Expecting some 4 Kg of film from Astrum sometime in may.

 

[Xylo]

Geez, some of you do manage to get fast service.
Here in Canada, I can't seem to receive in anything less than 2 weeks. And that's even when using courier services.
Heck, it even once took Canada Post a full month to just deliver a letter in the same city!
I more than once had to call the customer service to try and figure out what was going on and the last time, the lady on the phone told me that "Canada Post is not responsible for delivering mail that is not shipped within Canada with a tracking number".
If the USPS runs slower than a glacier, I think that Canada Post is more on a tectonic plate scale!

 

[Dusty Negative]

Geez, some of you do manage to get fast service.
Here in Canada, I can't seem to receive in anything less than 2 weeks. And that's even when using courier services.
Heck, it even once took Canada Post a full month to just deliver a letter in the same city!
I more than once had to call the customer service to try and figure out what was going on and the last time, the lady on the phone told me that "Canada Post is not responsible for delivering mail that is not shipped within Canada with a tracking number".
If the USPS runs slower than a glacier, I think that Canada Post is more on a tectonic plate scale!

Well, in fairness, Canada is rather … yuge.

 

[Craig]

Here in Canada, I can't seem to receive in anything less than 2 weeks. And that's even when using courier services.

Are you in a remote area? I can regularly get things to Calgary from the UK by DHL in 2 days, similarly from Japan.

 

[Xylo]

Are you in a remote area?

If I only was, then there would be a reason for it!
I'm just south of Montreal and there is a postal depot in the next city about 10 minutes from where I live.