Slow or lost shipping from China to Canada?

[klejoh0]

I have an item from China to Canada, up to date, shipping 75 days, not yet received.  mostly like lost?

I ordered 3 items on Apr 24, 2016, but up to date, none of them arrived.

Before I seldom had so slow shipping.  I don't why the shipping is so slow recently?

[mikwhale47]

i dont.t send for something and then want a refund.if that was the case i would never send for it.

[reallynicestamps]

Sometimes the item you bought does not exist.

As explained above, the seller makes his money on the customers who don't ask for refunds.

Sometimes the item is shipped Surface.

Which is slow.

Sometimes the item is in a container early, but the container ship does not yet have a full cargo.

More delays.

Sometimes the shipment is held up at Canadian Customs who are inspecting closely for fentanyl.

Sometimes the shipment is held up at Canada Post who are putting low priority on underpaid Chinese shipments.

Not all of these are the seller's FAULT, but they are his RESPONSIBILITY.

If the seller chose an Air Mail shipping service, most of those delays would disappear.

But your price would go up.

[marnotom!]

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@mikwhale47 wrote:

i dont.t send for something and then want a refund.if that was the case i would never send for it.

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Use your refund to repurchase the item or to repay the seller if and when your item eventually shows up, then.

[patken123]

couldn't agree more, a couple of times I have had to refund  ebay sellers after I received both the items and their refund.  sometimes it  is not an easy task, especially if the seller's email is not recognized by paypal, it does happen once in awhile  that the seller's info( that is on the paypal invoice) maybe written in Chinese and therefore can not be used to re-send money .

The way that worked for me was to send him/her an email through ebay and ask for their proper email address( name, @ and dot com) then the rest is easy using paypal's "send money".

If there's a will, there's a way.

[xavier1520]

Agree with this 100%. I believe in most cases the seller has shipped the product, yet due to the Canada Post delays, inspections and de-prioritization of cheap postage items, buyers understandably get impatient after a couple months and get refunds. Now the seller has no item and no money, double loss for them. I have to imagine that this is happening on a large enough scale to make me wonder why these sellers don't offer epacket upgrades like fasttech, aliexpress, and DHgate do. Seriously, it's like about CA$2 and it gets here in 2 weeks! I've pretty much stopped buying from ebay for this reason. 

[femmefan1946]

Seriously, it's like about CA$2 and it gets here in 2 weeks!

I agree it would be sensible.

But

• many of the the potential customers are waaaay too cheap for a $2 mailing charge
• many buyers don't like to pay for shipping.
• most buyers hate shipping charges that are higher than the purchase price.
• although most sellers are honest, they have calculated 'item not delivered' refunds into their asking price
• some few  are selling vapourware making their profit from the buyers who don't complain and get refunds.

de-prioritization of cheap postage items,

As a Canadian taxpayer, you should be aware that this is an international movement from postal systems acting against China Post's exploitation of  a loophole in the Universal Postal Union treaty.

As a Crown Corporation , Canada Post is required to turn its (substantial) profits over to the Government which reduces slightly our income tax burden.

[atvds1210]

Like a lot  of people I am finding shipments from China have gotten crazy slow.  I am 10 weeks now for some small items.

But I also found out that a seller who is registered as in China shipped from Singapore. Quote: ".. i send the parcel to you with Singapore post air mail!  China to Canada's postal service is very slow!..."

I don't order from Singapore because my experience is that it is even worse than China.  So I thought I was ordering from China but it is actually Singapore.

I will be interested to see if the post is  China ePost as indicated in the listing.  Are they sending it from Singapore then posting from China to get the cheap shipping rates.

Dollar wise it is about $4 so it's peanuts.  I would just like the item. 

[rodm1975]

It is slow took me almost 2-3 months to get it I ordered pen holders and other stuff thanks: 

[atvds1210]

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@xavier1520 wrote:

Agree with this 100%. I believe in most cases the seller has shipped the product, yet due to the Canada Post delays, inspections and de-prioritization of cheap postage items, buyers understandably get impatient after a couple months and get refunds. Now the seller has no item and no money, double loss for them. I have to imagine that this is happening on a large enough scale to make me wonder why these sellers don't offer epacket upgrades like fasttech, aliexpress, and DHgate do. Seriously, it's like about CA$2 and it gets here in 2 weeks! I've pretty much stopped buying from ebay for this reason. 

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Agree, and if you are a seller would you not represent a more reasonable shipping time frame?   The ones that do are in a small minority, but most keep posting the fantasy of deliver in 45 days.  These are volume guys that no better.  When they are not up front on time frames, they open themselves up to claims due to expectations they cannot meet.   

I think they get this stuff so cheap that the calculation is that a certain level of refunds is worth listing with misleading shipping information.  

The misleading shipping info is what bugs me more than the long delivery times.  

[marnotom!]

The seller doesn't set the delivery time estimates, atvds1210. eBay calculates those based on the seller's choice of shipping method, their handling time, and occasionally other factors.

eBay has adjusted the formula for calculating delivery time estimates for shipments originating from China at least once.

[hyunt-chun]

I had the same experiences.

I think some bad actually did not ship items.

sure it is. They use ebay to collect money for a short period of time.

I do not know.

Some bad sellers in china dont ship 

[femmefan1946]

Most sellers are honest, including the Chinese.

But sadly, that is a known scam and it hurts all eBay sellers wherever they are since most buyers don't really understand they are buying through eBay from one of millions of sellers and not from eBay itself.

There is also the problem of holdups at Canadian customs which may soon (in a couple of years ) be alleviated.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canada-post-phasing-out-controversial-shipping-d...

[ay656]

I've got an impression that some of the sellers have recognized that shipping to Canada takes too long and there might be problems, so they choose not to send. And I understand this.

You certainly get the refund from them few months later, but what's the point in ordering.

Ordering from the US is now all but impossible because of the Global Shipping Program. Ordering from China and Hong Kong is now too slow and unpredictable, and the situation is unlikely to improve.

[femmefan1946]

some of the sellers have recognized that shipping to Canada takes too long and there might be problems, so they choose not to send.

No,it was a known scam before the UPU and fentanyl problems slowed Chinese imports to a crawl.

Most of the problems seem to be on low value "free shipping" items that are sent Surface. Surface is notoriously slow, slow enough that experienced sellers warn newbies never to use it.

The seller who might be worried about problems with Canadian buyers, can simply Block us. Just as many sellers Block countries like Brazil, Russia,or Nigeria.

Ordering from the US is now all but impossible because of the Global Shipping Program.

The GSP is a Seller Protection program and not designed to be useful for buyers in any way.

It's even worse for Canadians with our low duty-free allowance of $20Cdn(~$16USD).

But it's certainly not compulsary.

When you Search look for these words:

Customs services and international tracking provided

That's a sign that the GSP will be applied.

Then choose another product.

This doesn't work on mobiles or if Search is set to Gallery View.

[toddmurray0]

A large majority of items shipped for free using China Post will NOT be delivered to you in Canada. Canada Post has even stated this. They do not have a reciprocal delivery agreement with China Post's free service to its citizens. The stuff may very well come via air mail, but it sits in a literal mountain of mail, that has the lowest priority to be delivered. It actually costs Canada Post a substantial amount of money to deliver the hundreds and thousands of packages sent for free from China.

Canada Post will however deliver any package that has had shipping paid for and has a tracking number. What bugs me is that these vendors from China most often do not offer any other type of shipping, why would they when they get it for free or at severely cut rate delivery charges. If they can't offer a tacked package, don't but from them.

[reallynicestamps]

They do not have a reciprocal delivery agreement with China Post's free service to its citizens.

They do.

The Universal Postal Union Treaty of 1874 covers 192 countries including both China and Taiwan.

It is now a department of the United Nations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union

China Post is not a free service, although international shipping is very cheap even by Chinese standards.

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/postal-service/rate.htm

The UPU has been negotiating an end to the favourable rates for Chinese packages. Originally these were part of the agreement designed to help developing countries. But when China shook off the stifling effects of Maoism and rapidly became the world's second largest economy, those rates did not change.

https://www.linns.com/news/postal-updates/2016/september/upu-international-rates-usps-disadvantage.h...

Western countries have been making low value/ untracked Chinese packages a very low priority to put pressure on China Post and make them pay their fair share of the costs of international mailing.

They have been successful and China Post has agreed to phase in higher rates over the next few years.

[wardbond8]

I ordered many things from China and you would think I would learn my lesson. I ordered some items from China at the beginning of October and I didn't receive any of them. They always tell you them must of got stuck at customs or got lost a long the way. I should know better not to ever order from China. Buyers be AWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[deedee4242]

You can go in your purchases, choose the option for 2016 rather than 30 days, and where it says "contact seller", click that and it will eventually take you to where you can request a refund.

[deedee4242]

You need to search in you whole year, not just the last 60 days.

[deedee4242]

You need to search your purchases for the whole year, not just the last 60 days.