Shipping to Japan, eBay/Canada Post label?
Summary: A participant initiated a discussion asking about shipping packages to Japan using an eBay or Canada Post label. Responses from other members, including ypdc_dennis, femmefan1946, and ricarmic, appeared, but the content of these responses is not provided. The discussion seems to revolve around clarifying the shipping process or sharing experiences. hansatrade responded to femmefan1946, suggesting a possible interaction or clarification related to the original shipping inquiry.
There's a problem with the label printing. Photo 1 shows what eBay gives me for the label printing. Photo 2 shows what's printed on the Canada Post label.
5 comments
dinomitesales
·8 months agoYup, ditto what others have said here. This has been a problem ever since eBay Labels became a thing in Canada. eBay allows customers to check out using an address written in non-Latin characters, but Canada Post's software isn't set up to handle non-Latin characters. Canada Post's addressing guidelines also specify an English translation of the address should be on the package.
Just ask the buyer for an English translation of their address and they should be able to provide one. Worst case scenario - if the buyer isn't responding to you and you don't want to cancel the sale - use a translation site or AI of your choice to translate the address into English characters. And it's a good idea to print out and tape an image of their Japanese character address next to the English address as well.
I just had the exact same problem as you last month. In my case, the buyer was not responding to my messages requesting an English translation of the address, so I cancelled the order with reason "problem with buyer's address". The buyer ended up reaching out about a week after I cancelled it to try and rectify the situation, but it was several days of back-and-forth trying to explain that he had been refunded for the order and needed to repurchase it if he still wanted it. Ultimately I think the issue was eBay's built-in chat translation being terrible. As soon as I started translating my messages into Japanese myself using ChatGPT and copying and pasting the Japanese language messages into the chat, he fully understood what I was trying to say and repurchased the item. Got to him in Japan in like a week, too! In hindsight I should have just translated the address myself and not bothered the customer in the first place. It was a $12 DVD it wasn't worth all the effort lol (and the translated English address he eventually provided was basically the same as the one ChatGPT gave me when I told it to translate his Japanese address).
ricarmic
·8 months agoWhat I have done when I have these is ask the buyer for their English address and advise that I'll put both on the package. So far I've always heard back promptly with the English version and all was well.
femmefan1946
·8 months agoI'd also print out the address as jpeg and tape that onto the package for the use of the Japanese postie.
hansatrade
·8 months agoIt's exactly what I am doing too. And it always works.
Personally, I would never ever try to translate - because just one, minor translation error might make the package undeliverable.
ypdc_dennis
·8 months agoGet an english translation of the address and paste it over the address on the label.
Either by checking with the buyer, or online.
Format: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2224.html
I found checking the postal code with google maps useful.
Google translate is only approximate (and often needs fine tuning).
If space on the package include the original Japanese address as a backup.
I also add a second larger english version of the address, since the label is so small.
That's what I did the last time I shipped to Japan. Package arrived without any problems.