Standard Shipping Times- Canada to the United States

I’m in Canada, so I don’t receive stuff from Canada to the US, but I mailed several swap packages over the weekend to the US. One has arrived and 3 just cleared Customs yesterday. Shipping across international borders is as much dependent on customs clearing as it is on the post office – you have no control over how long customs holds packages. Your client who thinks that 4 business days is unacceptable doesn’t live in the real world. I quite often order tea in the US and have it shipped to Canada – reverse of what we are talking about. I don’t even look at tracking to see when it’s coming for a week. I think 10 days is pretty standard in my experience, but two weeks isn’t unheard of…. IMHO. :))

Same, I’ m in Canada as well. Parcels from the US usually take 8-12 days to reach me as well. I did have one letter reach the West coast of the US in 4 days. It was regular untracked letter mail. Both the recipient and I thought this was unusually fast service.

I’m in Indiana in the U.S. and have ordered/swapped from Canada several times. A week and a half to two weeks seems to be standard (so 10-14 days) in my experience. It may be longer or shorter depending on where in the U.S. the packages are being shipped.

Agree with everyone above. It’s not CanadaPost, it’s customs. I often have probs with ups and purolater as well. Customs holds the packages, sometimes 1 day, and one instance of 3 weeks.

I regularly ship to the US and I find it can take up to 2 weeks, I don’t believe I’ve had anything take longer. Though I had one person in California where every package I sent only ever took 4 days. I was amazed at how quickly those particular parcels got there.

I’d agree with Lala in that it’s customs and not the post. It’s also handed off to USPS once it crosses the border if it originates from Canada Post here I believe.

I took a quick look at your site and I couldn’t find any shipping information. What I would suggest (this is completely my opinion) is that you have a shipping policy that clearly states items will be shipped via Canada Post express (or whatever shipping level) which would take X amount of business days. But your company is not responsible for any hold ups in the shipping that are caused by the postal system or customs etc. I would also suggest offering a shipping level that has a tracking number. That way you and the customer can keep track of where the package is. (This type of policy is what I find most international companies that I order from have).

Certainly you want your international customers to be happy, but I don’t think 4days is an unreasonable amount of time to wait, unless it was explicitly stated it would be there by 4 days.

Hope that all makes sense.

I’m not personally obsessed with tracking. I’d rather pay less,but I can see why it’s important to some people. Perhaps you could offer it as an option for shipping.

Also in Canada, so what I’m mentioning is the reverse: but for me, 2 weeks seems to be relatively standard and what I’ve come to sort of anticipate.

Although, I did have a Butiki order reach me in under a week and both times I’ve ordered from 52Teas the delivery has been very quick.

I agree with the consensus, as most of the packages that I’ve received have been from Canada and are tea related, and usually take 10-15 days though I was very pleased one time when I got a package from Davids Teas within 4 days. But that is the exception, not the rule.

Even with within the country, things can take a awhile to get to their intended places.

In the last few years USPS has closed quite a few of their facilities to cut costs, I could be wrong but I highly doubt that it has cut costs that much now they have to use more gas for regular and special delivery. (Generally packages of a certain size will get delivered only by special, not the regular carrier. It’s so the carriers aren’t weighed down with a bunch of packages.

I buy direct from Mariage Freres, TWG, etc while on business trips overseas and bring back what I can. The alternative sucks — your package will promptly arrive in the US within a business day, then gets warehoused waiting on clearance. Keep in mind, it is NOT JUST CUSTOMS it is clearing. Because Tea is a food item, it also has to go through USDA and Department of Agriculture inspection.

Sometimes it pops right on through within a week. Usually longer, up to 3 weeks.

Worst case, they will open up your package, open containers/bags of tea (yes, breaking seals and all), and as you can see in this post ( http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6033&p=113398&hilit=+customs#p113398 ) some people have even had their bricks of puerh broken in half and hopes of long-term storage destroyed.

If you have no alternative, it’s OK, you do what you have to if you want to keep your cupboard stocked with your favorites ;-). My advice though, find a job (or friend with a job) that sends you/them overseas 6-10 times a year, and you are in worry-free tea bliss!! :-) :-) :-)