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

[GregY]

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

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!

I'm 1 hr west of Craig in Banff/Canmore & i've frequently had packages from Japan delivered in 4 days from ordering. Shipping via DHL. I ordered a full size guitar case from the UK and it arrived in 5 days via DHL.

 

[Xylo]

I'm 1 hr west of Craig in Banff/Canmore & i've frequently had packages from Japan delivered in 4 days from ordering. Shipping via DHL. I ordered a full size guitar case from the UK and it arrived in 5 days via DHL.

This is really surprising. Last time I got a package from California via DHL, it took them a 1½ week...
That is plus 40$ customs and brokerage fees paid at the door.

 

[GregY]

This is really surprising. Last time I got a package from California via DHL, it took them a 1½ week...
That is plus 40$ customs and brokerage fees paid at the door.

It is common to receive overseas shipments faster than from the USA....unless you're paying big bucks for next day service.

 

[Xylo]

This is something I never could understand. We have free trade agreements, proximity, infrastructure yet a box of oranges from South Africa takes less time to get here than a piece of computer equipment.

 

[GregY]

This is something I never could understand. We have free trade agreements, proximity, infrastructure yet a box of oranges from South Africa takes less time to get here than a piece of computer equipment.

It likely has something to do with shipping routes within the USA as linked with courier shipping hubs. Shipments from other continents fly right into Canada. That would be my guess.

 

[Craig]

Shipments from other continents fly right into Canada. That would be my guess.

Not necessarily. When I bought a lens from Japan that came FedEx, it went from Tokyo to Memphis, then Memphis to Calgary. Lots of backtracking, but they have everything coordinated so that the planes arrive into the hub around midnight, the packages get sorted and go out again around 3am to arrive at the destination city in the morning for delivery that day.

 

[GregY]

Not necessarily. When I bought a lens from Japan that came FedEx, it went from Tokyo to Memphis, then Memphis to Calgary. Lots of backtracking, but they have everything coordinated so that the planes arrive into the hub around midnight, the packages get sorted and go out again around 3am to arrive at the destination city in the morning for delivery that day.

I should have clarified...shipments via DHL.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Not necessarily. When I bought a lens from Japan that came FedEx, it went from Tokyo to Memphis, then Memphis to Calgary. Lots of backtracking, but they have everything coordinated so that the planes arrive into the hub around midnight, the packages get sorted and go out again around 3am to arrive at the destination city in the morning for delivery that day.

I have had numerous shipments from Australia by FedEx go from Cairnes toSydney to Memphis to Los Angeles, from Cairnes to Sydney to Singapore to Memphis to Los Angeles and from Cairnes to Melborne to Sydney to Memphis to Los Angeles.

 

[DREW WILEY]

A MF camera shipped from Tokyo and on my doorstep 18 hrs later. Yeah, I'm on SF Bay near major parcel distribution hubs just half an hour from the airport itself. Still, that's quick!

 

[MattKing]

This is something I never could understand. We have free trade agreements, proximity, infrastructure yet a box of oranges from South Africa takes less time to get here than a piece of computer equipment.

Those oranges would have been imported using a Customs Broker and most likely pre-cleared before shipping.
If you had brought in a container load of computer equipment, it would most likely have been handled the same way.
The system is set up to make large commercial importations speedy and efficient.

 

[Xylo]

I know, but it's still quite baffling.
The worst I ever got was a DVD rom in a Toronto-Montreal package that went Toronto, Atlanta, Kentucky, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal... Too bad I didn't have a camera on board to film it all... that was FedEx...
On the good side, the box wasn't lost.

 

[GregY]

I know, but it's still quite baffling.
The worst I ever got was a DVD rom in a Toronto-Montreal package that went Toronto, Atlanta, Kentucky, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal... Too bad I didn't have a camera on board to film it all... that was FedEx...
On the good side, the box wasn't lost.

Yes, Fed-ex in N America seems to take some sort of pinball trajectory....

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, Fed-ex in N America seems to take some sort of pinball trajectory....

If it was not so frustrating and time consuming, it would be funny. Also we have to pay for the ping pong ball bouncing.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I know exactly how Fed Ex works in this country. It's trajectory is to toss a parcel out of plane from 6,000 feet above, and then say they don't have time for you to inspect the smashed package and its rattling contents. We had commercial accounts with both UPS and Fedex, and at least one carrier truck from each per day arriving, sometime large semi trucks from Fedex too. We either had to accept the full wrapped pallet right there on the spot and sign for it, even if indications of damage were present, or outright reject the whole thing and have it shipped back entire. UPS was a lot better as long as the well-known routine route driver was involved; but once temps showed up approaching peak December season, all kinds of things had been stolen from those trucks, evidently by some of the drivers themselves. I frequently had to enlist shipping detectives to track down missing shipments, "accidentally misplaced" somewhere forever, and looted, were it not for the threat of immediate criminal connotations. We weren't bluffing either.

Ironically, it was a special contract with FedEx air freight which allowed the pandemic shipping logjam in Japan to be broken through, including my own speedy delivery. And here locally, the prime Fedex office adjacent to their big warehouse trucking hub provides excellent service, whereas both their convenience stores can be horrible. Likewise, there is a centralized USPS parcel station in the same area, if needed in lieu of the neighborhood post office.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Use FedExLAX for those things which must move overnight!

 

[DREW WILEY]

It's even faster here. It's ten minute drive for me to the big hubs of all the parcel businesses. Every one of them has a warehouse facility bigger than three football fields with almost countless trucks lined up, plus a huge Amazon delivery hub. Yet right across the RR tracks and creek are hundreds of acres of undeveloped open space with beaches, marshes, and forest. One doesn't even see or hear the trucking commotion going on.
The nearby USPS facility even handles mailed overnite shipments of live animals. I've even seen people pick up live gaming roosters there, purely for "breeding purposes", they allege.

 

[Craig]

To Canada anyway, FedEx is miles ahead of UPS. UPS is ok if it's entirely domestic, but if a seller from the US will only ship UPS I won't buy from them. Too may problems and outrageous brokerage fees.

 

[Xylo]

Also we have to pay for the ping pong ball bouncing.

Maybe they have a Plinko machine to set the routes!

To Canada anyway, FedEx is miles ahead of UPS.

And UPS is miles ahead from Purolator.
Anybody ever seen them drop an entire shipment of computers and refuse to send them back?
Or anybody seen one of their poor delivery drivers finishing his rounds with a flashlight?
Or have to fill-up a shipping form on a carbon paper slip when everybody had moved away from this?
Have their driver go five times around the block because he can't find your address even if you turned all the house lights on? And then you have to go to the curb to flag him so he can find your home?

That's my Purolator service experience so far.

 

[Craig]

Maybe they have a Plinko machine to set the routes!


And UPS is miles ahead from Purolator.
Anybody ever seen them drop an entire shipment of computers and refuse to send them back?
Or anybody seen one of their poor delivery drivers finishing his rounds with a flashlight?
Or have to fill-up a shipping form on a carbon paper slip when everybody had moved away from this?
Have their driver go five times around the block because he can't find your address even if you turned all the house lights on? And then you have to go to the curb to flag him so he can find your home?

That's my Purolator service experience so far.

Purolator is 90% owned by Canada Post, so that might explain things.

 

[Xylo]

Purolator is 90% owned by Canada Post, so that might explain things.

Exactly!