Chinese vs Japanese Shipping
Has anyone noticed how much better shipping from Japan is as opposed to China. Two days ago a Yunomi order shipped EMS from Japan. It showed up in the USA today and because I live near JFK relatively speaking I should have it tomorrow. That is three days from Japan. Even with EMS from China it rarely bests six days.
And less than 1/10th of the population of China, so it would be a much smaller postal service to manage. But yeah, definitely better infrastructure too.
I wish some of the Chinese companies would use DHL. I’ve received many, many DHL shipments from India (usually not tea), and I’ll sometimes get those shipments within 3-4 days from the time they ship. And it’s not really anymore expensive than what these companies seem to charge for tea to ship anyway.
I’ve been waiting about a month for a gaiwan I bought from China on eBay.
Scott at Yunnan Sourcing related a story about why they don’t use DHL at Yunnan Sourcing. He said they tried another shipping service but that Chinese customs officials smashed twenty or thirty packages to give them the message to use China Post.
I sell online, and the norm now is free shipping. Build the Air cost into the price of the item and call it a day.
My experience has been different. Shipping from Japan takes on average 2-3 weeks before it arrives. From China, it’s 1-2 weeks and I can actually track it
Must not have been EMS shipping. I’ve used EMS shipping several times from Japan and each time it has showed up in three to four days. But then again I live in New York so I am a thirty minute truck ride for the package from the sort center. If I lived elsewhere in the US you could tack on two more days to the shipping.
I am in NYC and don’t order much from Japan but I do send packages to Tokyo which frequently arrive in 2-3 days using regular USPS First Class Mail. When I order from China and the company uses any kind of express service it usually arrives in a few days; China Post often takes a couple weeks. Many Chinese companies have great shipping deals as many sellers sell 99 cent items on Ebay with free tracking to the US the reverse route would never be that cheap.
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