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Japan Post suspension of international mail


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On 6/16/2020 at 9:11 PM, Focslain said:

Got an order recently from CDJapan, at the time EMS was not an option, so went with DHL and got it in a week. Was also cheaper then EMS for once.

This happened to me even tough I would have asked for it if needed. I’ve been ordering a package a month from China and always used DHL. They’ve always been super fast! Made an order on Mandarake. They said they couldn’t give me EMS and had to give DHL. Was happy with this. Cheaper shipping, got it in 4 days to Sweden. Now I ordered a second package from Mandarake. Shipping was 2840 using EMS and asked for DHL, wasn’t an option first, and got a new shipping price for 1870. Happy as a clam ;) 

Edited by Jesper77
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Looks like EMS is back to normal?  Just had a couple of orders from AmiAmi and Mandarake shipped via EMS to Canada leave Japan within a few days, 1 in the case of Mandarake.

 

image.png.e9a6a83e21e7e24c0736ee8ae94c5b4e.pngimage.png.8d0daccae109145aaf5f44c7c7b552cd.png

 

Edited by Smacky
Added too many screenshots
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45 minutes ago, jenius said:

You have a fun definition of 'normal'.

Mandarake shipped on the 24th and departing Japan the next day is not normal?  Better than normal?

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53 minutes ago, Smacky said:

Mandarake shipped on the 24th and departing Japan the next day is not normal?  Better than normal?

It hasn't been normal for months, and so far it just looks like you got lucky.

When Japan Post starts accepting international packages from the general public again, only then will EMS be back to "normal."

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5 hours ago, jenius said:

Here's the Japanpost news section https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/index_en.html

When you see the "resumption of all services" post, that is when "normal" is achieved.

That said, at least Canada still has some service so that's cool. I still need to rely on DHL or ferries to get goods here in the states. 

EMS is definitely not back to normal yet. My package, which sat in limbo at the Tokyo airport for two months, was "dispatched" eight days ago and still hasn't left the country.

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My last and strangest package to get caught up in this mess, after spending 2 months not moving an inch in Japan, finally got on a plane then spent 2 weeks in Chicago :blink: then is finally moving again. Absolutely no explanation on that one!

Screenshot 2020-06-26 10.30.57.png

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6 hours ago, RedComet said:

My last and strangest package to get caught up in this mess, after spending 2 months not moving an inch in Japan, finally got on a plane then spent 2 weeks in Chicago :blink: then is finally moving again. Absolutely no explanation on that one!

 

USPS is the explanation. They're usually a little screwed up. COVID broke them.:p

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Can I just briefly talk about how much better the Japanese postal service appears to be compared to the US model?

This week I won my first Yahoo JP auction using Buyee.  It was a for VF (of course) Buyee got my package in 2 days and cost of shipping from seller to them was just over $10.  Over here a similar VF shipped from state to state has costed me  double to triple and would take over a  week to arrive.  Buyee offered me EMS but considering the delays and I since won the auction for good price I upgraded to DHL for a cost $37.   The same price I would have been charged to ship from another state.  Here we have the USPS, UPS, FedEx and however else all in competing against each other and none of them ship at good price and quickly.

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Worth noting that the US has states larger than the entire country of Japan, and Japan has much higher population density in most areas. This means their postal service has to cover less area, and gets better efficiency with the areas they do cover.

Edited by Sanity is Optional
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Note that Japan Post is basically a privatized company*.  It is also in direct competition with Yamato Shipping for such things as domestic mail.  So, those are other things keeping prices down and promoting efficiency in general.

 

* of course the original (non-privatized) Japan Post was also incredibly efficient to begin with.

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3 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Worth noting that the US has states larger than the entire country of Japan, and Japan has much higher population density in most areas. This means their postal service has to cover less area, and gets better efficiency with the areas they do cover.

1481389544_Science2.jpg.1aab462807adf03db478fa144bb24e75.jpg

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Possibly stupid question but it's hard to keep track:  if I were to order something new, now, from N-Y, what would happen?  If Japan Post isn't accepting "new" stuff to go to the US-----would NY refuse the order?  Box it up but allow it to just sit around until it was ok to mail?  Or force me to ship it immediately for $$$$$$ via DHL? 

Honestly, I am unconcerned with waiting after purchase (months even), my only concern is price. ($30 item, so paying $30 or whatever to ship is out of the question)

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8 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

Possibly stupid question but it's hard to keep track:  if I were to order something new, now, from N-Y, what would happen?  If Japan Post isn't accepting "new" stuff to go to the US-----would NY refuse the order?  Box it up but allow it to just sit around until it was ok to mail?  Or force me to ship it immediately for $$$$$$ via DHL? 

Honestly, I am unconcerned with waiting (months even), my only concern is price. ($30 item, so paying $30 or whatever to ship is out of the question)

Technically, you can choose one of the available options including Ferry but depending on how big the item is, it might be a bit more expensive to use that compared to the other normally available methods. Either way, I don’t think any shipping option will be much less than $20 so you could either wait and see or just choose the cheapest method available now. 

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2 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

I haven't bought from N-Y in a while----can I still see all their many shipping options/cost prior to buying (without committing to buy), and is it accurate even with the COVID shipping situation? 

Yeah, you have until the last step with the terms checkbox before you commit so you can see all the options before that. I’m not sure but some have an exclamation mark that I haven’t checked on what it means. I think some methods just don’t even show up so you might want to look up what it all means. 

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Yeah, I'm wondering about the exclamation mark too----my preferred option (JP eco) has it-----anyone know if the mark means "not actually available" or just "will take longer than usual"?   (can't imagine there'd be any other meaning).  Couldn't find anything in their FAQ's about symbols for shipping.  

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7 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Yeah, I'm wondering about the exclamation mark too----my preferred option (JP eco) has it-----anyone know if the mark means "not actually available" or just "will take longer than usual"?   (can't imagine there'd be any other meaning).  Couldn't find anything in their FAQ's about symbols for shipping.  

I can't speak for NY right now, but The Jungle still let me order with economy shipping but with a warning that it won't ship right now. They did let me stack more things in my order later without upping shipping a bunch, though they did note that's not normal "policy". I know I'm waiting longer for some things to come from them, but what is coming I got some fantastic prices on so I'm patient.

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Well, it's unfortunate that EMS and SAL are unavailable, but apparently FedEx is running at DHL speeds right now.

Picked up at 4pm on Tues in Japan, and estimated delivery is before 10:30am in California on Wed, or about 36 hours later.

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28 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Well, it's unfortunate that EMS and SAL are unavailable, but apparently FedEx is running at DHL speeds right now.

Picked up at 4pm on Tues in Japan, and estimated delivery is before 10:30am in California on Wed, or about 36 hours later.

That's good to know!  I selected DHL for my VF-0D from HLJ and for some reason they decided to process FedEx instead. 

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My DHL arrived last night at their hub in Ohio.  Left Japan the same day.  Says it passed US customs.  Today I look to see that's it on a plane to my state and instead the tracking info says shipment on hold.   Ugh it made it out of Japan no problems only to get stuck in Ohio.

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32 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

My DHL arrived last night at their hub in Ohio.  Left Japan the same day.  Says it passed US customs.  Today I look to see that's it on a plane to my state and instead the tracking info says shipment on hold.   Ugh it made it out of Japan no problems only to get stuck in Ohio.

My DHL deliveries almost always go on hold for a day or so. You should be fine. 

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2 hours ago, bleecher said:

Anyone ever have any issues shipping via ferry? Thinking about switching over as who knows when the US will open again for deliveries.

You're referring to surface mail, right?

No issues per se, but it's best to have a healthy awareness of the time involved:

When I was sending stuff to/from Japan to Vancouver (or vice-versa), it took about a month to cross the Pacific.  There appeared to be about 1 boat per month, as shipping time would vary between 30 to 60 days.  During busy times (Christmas), that 30 to 60 day time frame could balloon up to 4 months, depending on how bad your luck is.

Now that scenario is sending from point of entry to point of entry (Osaka to Vancouver).  If you're in the USA, the points of entry on the Pacific Coast probably have similar time frames (E.g. Seattle, LA).  However, if you're not near one of those port cities, then it's going to take even longer.

I suspect that there are more  freighters plying between Japan and the USA than Japan and Canada, however with the Covid-19 thing happening, I'm tempted to say that the aforementioned busy time is currently the "best case" scenario... :cray:

Edited by sketchley
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Dude, I had an EMS shipment stuck in Tokyo Int for over a month. I shipped something via surface mail and it got here 2 weeks faster than the EMS package. I made the EMS purchase one week after the surface mail purchase too.

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5 hours ago, bleecher said:

Anyone ever have any issues shipping via ferry? Thinking about switching over as who knows when the US will open again for deliveries.

Yeah, I use Ferry shipping almost every time I can. Normally, it takes 1-2 months for my stuff to arrive. The last couple orders I got that shipped right around the beginning of the lockdown took 2-3 months.

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AmiAmi offered EMS or DHL for my June shipment, and DHL was pretty gruesomely priced so I took a chance on EMS. Got an e-mail this morning saying my package would be indefinitely delayed unless I upgraded to DHL. Which I'm going to do, because I need something nice in these terrible times and a Legioss will do the trick, but man is the shipping brutal.

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