Asia to Canada very slow shipping situation - worse and worse since 2014.

[redribbonred]

Hi - here's the situation from my point of view.

I sell primarily from Taiwan in Asia (not quite the same as China!) worldwide - and a main problem recently, which had worsened in 2015, and now in 2016 seems even worse - is that stardard airmailed packages to Canada used to take 1-3 weeks (same as USA) whereas they now commonly take over 1 month. Possibly 2 months now or soon in some cases.

I believe that its due to customs delays (and maybe or maybe not domestic postal delays) because of some new Canadian policy since around late 2014.

Its a major problem which this year I started warning all customers in Canada about, but now, because of two problems, I am putting them in the same basket as South America, Italy, Spain and Portugal - I will not mail there without the customer paying an extra $3 (our cost) for registered mail. (our items are too small to afford paying it ourself - more importantly all other western countries don't need it)

The problems forcing this are two-fold:

1. Ebay forces refunds when customers open cases and are unwilling to communicate or wait, even when I've forewarned them about delays (this happens sometimes - not all customers are heartless to us).

2. When an impatient customer (who I've communicated with) appeals to close the case and refund, eBay makes the decision before I can make the refund myself, and then I get a mark against my account rating for "unresolved cases". This risks restricting and ruining my entire account! (not that ebay even cares about their own loss of revenue)

So in a nutshell, its a shame for Canada, and for businesses selling to them from Asia. Also eBay isn't on the ball about the situation (typical).

Can anyone shed any light on if there has been any changes in policy by the Canadian government, or customs services, with respect to packages from China/Asia? (I know they cancelled a huge amount of Chinese visas to deal with the immigration/real estate problems around 2014).

And for what its worth - I don't think Chinese/Asian sellers are becoming or are less trustworthy - from my experience this is a delivery time issue unique to Canada I'm afraid.

I hope this information or perspective is useful, and I hope to hear peoples thoughts or point of view 🙂

[sylviebee]

I don't know why transit time has become so long to Canada, but many of us have noticed the increase.  It's taking 3 months for most of my shipments from China to arrive.

Many buyers blame the sellers (I'm not one of them).  

I've just put in numerous orders to China just in case Chinese sellers stop shipping to Canada or increase cost to us just as you suggested.

Have you read the Buyer's Board?  There are several threads addressing this issue and I think you'd find them interesting.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Buyer-Central/bd-p/23003

[oragex]

From a Canadian buyer point of view, I have the same feelings.  It takes too long.  I hope Ebay will include a faster shipping option at least for the Canadian buyers.  I purchased an item with a $1 shipping option and received it in 3 weeks, with a signature request upon reception.  I will surely pay again for this shipping to have items arrive in less than 1 month

[recped]

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@sylviebee wrote:

I don't know why transit time has become so long to Canada, but many of us have noticed the increase.  It's taking 3 months for most of my shipments from China to arrive.

Many buyers blame the sellers (I'm not one of them).  

I've just put in numerous orders to China just in case Chinese sellers stop shipping to Canada or increase cost to us just as you suggested.

Have you read the Buyer's Board?  There are several threads addressing this issue and I think you'd find them interesting.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Buyer-Central/bd-p/23003

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Yeah I've noticed this as well but it's never been three months (yet). The last few I've had coming from China took just shy of one month but I have one remaining that hasn't arrived which is now at 32 days (3 days more than the eBay estimate).

I'm not in a panic as I have 27 days left to open a claim and I expect it will show up before then.

I have sympathies for the sellers, most US buyers go into full on panic mode at two weeks and are very quick on the neg finger.

[recped]

Also eBay isn't on the ball about the situation (typical).

What do you want eBay to do? What do you think eBay CAN do? eBay doesn't have any control or even influence over shipping.

[realjazz-123]

It may be coincidence but packages that I send to China used to take about 15 days shipped airmail untracked. However  my last one a few weeks ago  took about 25 days to arrive and one is now still in transit for about 28 days. The concerned buyer has been very patient but I told him i would refund all $$ in 2 days which will be a month in transit . I hope he will be understanding but I am concerned about 1 full month delivery and possible lost item. Up to now, I have not had a lost package to China, but something has changed.

[pjcdn2005]

I've never had a package sent to China that wasn't lost so you're doing well. But then I've only sent 2 items there as after the second inr, I started to block them when listing Coach items.

[sylviebee]

This is an older thread that's been revived.

In any case, I've posted the following blurb several times but it seems relevant here as well.

Below is a quote by Canada Post taken from the transcripts that mj posted several weeks ago and explains the long delays for items shipped to Canada.

""" Canada Post has focused their business on the popularity of online shopping. A lot of this product comes from Asia, and because of the international postage regulations for third world countries, Canada Post receives little to no revenue for this product. Because of this, major plants across Canada stockpile this product for weeks until they have the resources to work it, causing delays in service.""""

[sylviebee]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

I've never had a package sent to China that wasn't lost so you're doing well. But then I've only sent 2 items there as after the second inr, I started to block them when listing Coach items.

________________________________________

When I ship there I usually insure with TPI.  I've had to make 2 claims for shipments to China which my TPI provider honoured.

I ship there because it's still well worth my while.

[pjcdn2005]

I had China  as a ship to location for at least 7 years and those were the only 2 sales that I had there so my products don't seem to appeal to them all that much anyway.  I'm normally not paranoid at all about new or international buyers but in both cases the buyers registered the day of purchase and my item was their only purchase on eBay even months later,  both used only numbers in their ID and both purchased coach men's wallets. It all seemed odd and though the transactions may have been unrelated, I decided that it wasn't worthwhile for me to continue to ship there.

[ricarmic]

What I have done with both China and Brazil is I have created special shipping rates for them that require tracking.

It makes it almost non-sensical for small items, however I am still having sales (even sometimes when the shipping is as much as the item) and so far none have been lost with tracking......

[realjazz-123]

The smallest package I can send to China with only ONE vinyl record  will cost $23 by untracked airmail. The same package tracked is $83!!! Most of my sales are to international sites, so basically my expectation of many sales has come to an end because of international shipping rates.

[Anonymous]

I noticed on the packages/parcels that I received from China, Thailand, Hong Kong are "small packet air" and not one of them has "air mail" stickers on them.  I guess the postal system think they are being send by surface mail.

You could at least put air mail stickers on both sides and maybe they get arrived more faster?

[femmefan1946]

not one of them has "air mail" stickers on them.  I guess the postal system think they are being send by surface mail.

Well, there's the postal system and then there are postal workers.

Most of the mail is barely seen by a human being as it scoots past on the conveyor belt.

Those bar codes are doing all the reading.

It's why FRAGILE  stickers are pretty useless, for that matter. No the workers do not take them aside for their breaktime football game, no eyes ever see them from going on the truck at the post office until they are on the carrier's route.

If the shipper didn't package for a two foot drop from one belt to the next, and having a 25kilo parcel drop on top, no sticker will help.

That being said, I put Air Mail stickers on everything that goes out of Canada. But it's to make my customer feel cosseted and loved, not for the postal system.

[zee-chan]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

That being said, I put Air Mail stickers on everything that goes out of Canada. But it's to make my customer feel cosseted and loved, not for the postal system.

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I reuse shipping boxes and sometimes the boxes have a little dent (overall the box is still nice and sturdy), I use airmail stickers to cover up those dents... 

And I write things like "please handle with care, thank you!" on the box not because I expect the machine to read it, but to show the buyer that I took the time to write things like that to make sure their order are well handled, and well if there is indeed damage that happened (no one ever reported back any damage by the way) then at least they'd probably be more angry at the postie who still bent the book despite it said "please do not bend" (my books are shipped with cardboard)...  

Back to the shipping topic, I wonder if that's why my two recent purchases from Japan is taking over a month to arrive. I opted for SAL mail as usual and usually I get them within 2-4 weeks. I hope they're just slow and not stolen... I did move to a new neighbourhood early 2016, but I received a couple parcels back in August just fine. 

[sylviebee]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

That being said, I put Air Mail stickers on everything that goes out of Canada. But it's to make my customer feel cosseted and loved, not for the postal system.

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Femme, where do you get the Air Mail stickers?  Does Canada Post provide them at no cost?

[zee-chan]

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@sylviebee wrote:

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

That being said, I put Air Mail stickers on everything that goes out of Canada. But it's to make my customer feel cosseted and loved, not for the postal system.

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Femme, where do you get the Air Mail stickers?  Does Canada Post provide them at no cost?

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I'm not Femme, but I get my airmail stickers from postal outlets, like the ones in Shopper's Drug Mart. I just ask the nice lady behind the counter for some airmail stickers when I go mail things. And yes, it's free. 

I believe you can order them online for free as a VentureOne customers too (like where you'd order labolopes). I never tried ordering them online though.

[ricarmic]

Regarding ordering the airmail stickers online, they used to have a rule that you could only order a maximum of 10 sheets? at a time, which is 200 airmail stickers or 100 letters worth as one is supposed to have 2 airmail stickers on a given package on 2 "sides". (As I understand it the rule was created because some enterprising soul was ordering many 1000s and then reselling them. Once again a bad egg spoils things for the rest of us)

I'm lucky that I live in a wee village and my post office has always treated me most awesomely. I get my airmail stickers free too.

[pjcdn2005]

I've ordered them from CP online but I never think to use them. I wonder if it actually makes a difference.

[ricarmic]

Years ago I have had small packets go surface instead of airmail, theoretically because they didn't have airmail stickers.

Since then I always put airmail stickers on (or my PM puts them on for me if I miss one, they are very diligent about having them on the letters/parcels)