Slow shipping from China to Canada?

[robwhite79]

I'm a long time eBay user...I love eBay. 99% of the stuff I order comes direct from China (I'm a fan of the "Buy it Now!" button). I'm used to it taking a month for my orders to arrive but recently I've run into a problem.

Currently I have 8 items in my purchase history (ranging from 99 cents with free shipping to $25 with $5 shipping) that are yet to arrive. It's been literally 2x the normal amount of time I wait for these types of purchases.

I've already written to one seller to let them know what's going on (they said that if it's longer than 22 business days it's not going to arrive) and asked them to re-ship the product before the deadline of my PayPal buyers protection and they said they would send out a new one even though their records showed that the item had arrived in Canada.

Long story short: Is anyone else in Canada experiencing significant shipping delays? I'm on the east coast but normally it's 15 business days at most for these orders from China. I don't want refunds, I just want the things I bought! Also, PayPal's dispute window is 45 (calender) days so even though I don't want to rip off any sellers because Canada Post (or customs *shudder*) is messing up I don't really have any other options at this point. $100 might not be a lot of money but this is for 8 different items (all of which I'll need to reorder because they are things I really want).

[femmefan1946]

If the sellers are honest, you should be aware that during the Chinese New Year earlier this month commerce practically closed down in China for about 11 days.

Anything that did not make it out of China before everyone went home for the holiday will have some delay.

There have been reports that items with batteries, and batteries themselves, have been stopped by Chinese customs officials and returned to sender.

asked them to re-ship the product before the deadline

I would suggest that rather than asking for a re-shipment, you ask for a refund and then re-order. This won't make any great delay, but will keep your Buyer Protection at its maximum.

If the seller can show that they have re-shipped, but didn't, PP will not refund you. And waiting for the reshipment will take you past the 45 days.

 and they said they would send out a new one even though their records showed that the item had arrived in Canada.

Ask for that Delivery Confirmation number and look it up yourself. If it is in Canada, Canada Post should have a record. But China Post has English language pages too.

[theafkgamer]

I buy a lot from China. A LOT. I've had stuff take 2 weeks to come to me. I've also had stuff take almost 4 months to arrive. You have to look at it this way... You like their incredibly low prices, right? Well so does everybody else in the world. You're waiting for 8 packages, now multiply 8 by the number of people that do the same thing as you are. You're looking at millions of packages leaving Asia on a daily basis. Taking a long time to arrive is not uncommon.

You just need to be patient. Keep in mind ebay gives you 45 days to open an Item not Received claim.

[topqualityitems2012]

I also noticed the same thing. Very very slow shipping from China to Canada. Sometimes takes more than 45 days and that time you don't have the right to open a claim case. I had bad experience with ebay and PayPal in the last month. I ordered few staff from 2 sellers from china one of them I purchased 4 items on bid auction and the seller shipped them separately. After 38 days none of the arrived so I had to open 4 dispute cases. After one week 2 of them arrived so I cancelled 2 cases and left the other 2 after one week PayPal had refunded me the money but guess what happened?? PayPal sent me a warning email and mentioned that I have to consider my transactions and dispute history and if they notice that I stll have the same issues they would suspend my account. This is not our problem. Why you forced the sellers to ship the items from China to Switzerland the to Canada. This is not our fault. I have stopped buying from ebay just because of this issue with PayPal. I found another source to buy stuff from China. EBay and PayPal you are loosing your customers.

[travelled1]

I don't think it is a matter of slow shipping. It is a matter of the item not being shipped at all and the seller hoping the buyer never remembers or complains about a low dollar item they ordered. In the end, these sellers end up with free money.

If it is a matter of slow shipping, I would have received the item I ordered January 1st and it is now May 4th. I got a refund for that order.

I am now waiting for a shipment from another seller for the same item and it have been over 45 days. I highly doubt it will ever appear in my mailbox.

ebay should clamp down on these fraudulent practices and shut these sellers down or fine them heavily (place a hold on their accounts).

[travelled1]

Further to my response above...

It took 52 days for the item to arrive. The listing states an estimated 12 to 23 days. It would be best if the seller revises his shipping estimates. Also, I think this was air-shipped recently because the packaging shows 4PX Worldwide Express.

I believe the latter took place after I filed a complaint with the seller and ebay. The package the item arrived in stated "AIR MAIL".

[2006guerriero]

I too have purchased a lot of stuff overseas, and lately, things are taking forever.  I ordered something from Thailand on April 9, and they shipped it April 10.  The tracking number says it left Bankok customs/airport on April 16.  It's now May 21, and still nothing.  That package should have physically arrived at Vancouver here basically the same day or the next day.  Yet the tracking number generates nothing at the Canada Post website.  I called them up, as well as CSBS, and they are both just useless.  The seller says they've had problems shipping to Canada.  I've even gone and looked at some other sellers from there (Thailand) who have Canada listed as an excluded country and when i emailed a few of them to ask why, they said it's because of these monster delays.  It's like we're a third world country here.  Canada Post is losing it.

[travelled1]

I don't think Canada Post is losing it since they can get a package across the country in an easy week, so the delay must be elsewhere.

[2006guerriero]

They obviously are. That's why all these sellers are excluding Canada, because they have problems specific to Canada. Also, I finally received one package from Hong Kong that took over a month. The Canada Post tracking finally activated the day it was delivered. The tracking currently says it's still to be delivered, even though i've had the package now for a few days. On the tracking page, it also says signature required, yet they just left the package sitting there outside. They are losing it. 🙂

[ranma!]

I would have to agree that something is wrong with Canada Post and the way they are handling these epackets from China. I have several orders that are upwards 40+ days waiting, yet when I buy from the same seller and have it shipped to my American address, it only takes 14 days, and the tracking system works 100%.

[clifford8733]

Ordered a smartphone which was sent from China via NLPost . Tracking ceased when it reported "arrived in Canada" on Aug 9. Since then nothing. Since the item cost is over $200Can, I suspect it is still in Customs -tomorrow will be 1 month!

[sonica-music]

Canada Post might check packages for agricultural products. I have had seeds confiscated but the notice came with the package. This applies to any country you import from, even USA.

[rencoreg]

I have to agree with travelled1. I have been purchasing from China for many years on Ebay and have never encountered not receiving any shipments. I purchased 3 items from three different sellers and haven't received anything. It was low cost items so I also believe that they probably don't bother shipping the item out in hopes you forget. At $1.00 an item if 100 people do not claim it...well you can do the math... they just made a whopping $100.00.

[radeon888]

Yes, same problem here. Waiting for 8 items all 30+ days from China. I have purchased a lot of  items from China and it was never like this. Something has changed in the past 6 months. Before max shipping be 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks and 100% delivery,.  As of Feburary 2016, I'm still waiting for 6 items ordered early December 2015. I have requested refunds on many of them. I will probably stop using EBay for awhile. This is very frustrating for me and I'm sure for the sellers.

[travelled1]

I don't think some of them have the intent to even ship the item. In fact they probably do not even have the item for sale.

So what they are doing is hoping that you will forget or not even bother disputing a low dollar item. That is 100% profit.

And for the people that do dispute, they simply refund you your money.

This has happened twice already.

[q00q]

I used to BIN for many photographic accessories but the shipping has noticeably slowed down and I've had to make more claims. However, in a few case I have been provided with a tracking number and they show the item was dispatched shortly after remitting Paypal payment. At this point, I don't see any evidence of widespread fraud. If the item is genuinely lost during shipment, then of course the seller is hoping you'll just forget about it or not bother to claim.

Many sellers are selling identical items (e.g., lens caps or adapters) and are likely just retailing the item on their account. I'm guessing many items are dropped actually shipped from the factory or from some order fulfillment warehouse. Who knows, our missing stuff might very well be sitting in a shipping container in Vancouver. The perils of free shipping.

[feer56]

I ordered an item at the end of December and it didn't arrive. I filed a dispute and was refunded. I'll continue to see if the item arrives. However, the interesting thing is that I placed an order for a different item from a different seller, and that arrived a week before the cut off date of 'estimated delivery'. As for the rest of the items I've received a tracking # on, one shows that it was shipped out of China 3.5 weeks ago. The estimated delivery cut off date is this mid week. I'm not sure if customs has not processed it or if Canada Post lost the package.. It's definitely interesting for me, especially this is my first few times purchasing items from China through eBay.

[oragex]

I used to receive items from China in 4 weeks.  Since 2015 it takes rather 6 to 8 weeks.  I will stop buying from China for a while because the delay is too long.  On  the other side, if the item has not arrived in 6 weeks, I will open a case and ask for a refund.  One seller offered to post another item for free but he never did so because the 60 days delay for a feedback did expire and they will not send another item knowing this.  So I always request a refund.  Some sellers asked me to close the case before posting a replacement because Ebay will punish them  if I open a case.   Well, when I closed the case, they did not sent any replacement.

[oragex]

Another possibility is that Canada Post has changed the security procedure for processing the packages causing long delivery delays. Perhaps call them and try to find out how long it took them to process the package.

[evanshay_0]

I'm wondering what's the cheapest way to shipping staff from china to Canada kG 32.4 anyone can you help me in it please and how much will cost?thank you.