Severe Japan Post SAL/EMS/ePacket suspensions due to COVID-19 + Russia's invasion in Ukraine! -> (Updated March 8 2022)

[bill937ca]

SAL is still suspended. along with mail to many countries.

 

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2020/0528_01_01_en.pdf

 

On the Hobby Search temporary solutions Surface Small Packet is very close to SAL Small Packet cost.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ems2

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ems

[fpav_2125]

5 hours ago, bill937ca said:

SAL is still suspended. along with mail to many countries.

 

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2020/0528_01_01_en.pdf

 

On the Hobby Search temporary solutions Surface Small Packet is very close to SAL Small Packet cost.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ems2

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ems

 

Japan Post information was updated, June 5 information:

 

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2020/0604_01_01_en.pdf

[Welshbloke]

Interestingly I went to check if HS had said anything new about my stuck order and it's now showing "preparing for shipping". I don't remember whether it was showing this before though! Still not realistically expecting it before the end of the year at this rate...

[Yavianice]

Well, mail to U.S. is not completely suspended. The acceptance is suspended, but mail is still continued, but at a much lower rate, it seems. There are still flights between US and Japan, but much fewer than before. My parcels also just went to "preparing for shipping". Most likely, Japan Post is contacting businesses that have large contracts with them, and slowly but surely ship packages and mail that have been pending for the last 2 months as space becomes available. 

[Welshbloke]

I'm not sure what the UK situation is. It sounds as if post going the other way is making it through, and I think international mail within Europe is working again.

 

I realise we're looking at weeks or months to clear the backlog, and at the moment I'll be happy if it does eventually turn up in, say, November!

[Cat]

2 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

Interestingly I went to check if HS had said anything new about my stuck order and it's now showing "preparing for shipping". I don't remember whether it was showing this before though! Still not realistically expecting it before the end of the year at this rate...

 

Our order was listed as preparing for shipping from when it got returned.  Meaning it was in a box in the pile, and a category that you can’t recombine with other orders.

[cteno4]

My HS order that was EMS and spitting at Tokyo airport for 6+ weeks just arrived yesterday! Haza! So there is a trickle coming to the us of the pile there waiting at airports! Very few flights but I bet few passengers so maybe more room per plane, but probably doesn’t come close to the volume needed for the usual stuff and then throw the backlog of EMS as well. But maybe the suspension of EMS as well as SAL let them finally get a lot of the backlog out.

 

japan post has not mentioned contracting new sources for mail cargo. I was looking at ordering something from Australia last month and they had announced a contract for mail to go on cargo planes to the us and other places, but even then it was forecast to be 6-8 weeks...

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

I went for DHL for my most recent RG-Rokko order. They shipped it yesterday (Wednesday June 10), and expected delivery is Monday June 15. So that's pretty fast all things considered. I've also already paid the customs fee and import tax directly to DHL, so they'll deliver to my door instead of the package sitting in customs for up to 2 weeks to then be dropped off at a local pickup point as is the case with EMS.

 

The other way around though, my World Kougei part I sent to RG-Rokko is still 'sent to country of destination'. I dropped that off at the post office on May 29.

 

[Yavianice]

Update June 18:

Japan Post has resumed EMS services to these countries:

 

Estonia, Austria, Croatia, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg

[maihama eki]

I received a Plaza Japan order on Monday.

May 27 - Order placed.

June 10 - Received notification that some items were out of stock, and order was adjusted.

June 11 - Package shipped by DHL.

June 15 - Arrived in Colorado.

[bill937ca]

I recently had an EMS parcel ship on June 17th and left on a plane June 18th. Maybe the fog is beginning to clear. Previously to get to this stage took 4-5 weeks.

Edited June 20, 2020 by bill937ca

[roadstar_na6]

1 hour ago, bill937ca said:

leave on a plane

 

Well being dispatched from the outward office and actually being on the plane are two entirely different things tho 😄

[bill937ca]

12 minutes ago, roadstar_na6 said:

 

Well being dispatched from the outward office and actually being on the plane are two entirely different things tho 😄

Might be in your country, but in my experience that parcel will be in Canada in a matter of hours, probably 12-14 hours  Now how long before its presented to Customs is another thing.

[roadstar_na6]

36 minutes ago, bill937ca said:

Might be in your country, but in my experience that parcel will be in Canada in a matter of hours, probably 12-14 hours  Now how long before its presented to Customs is another thing.

Well at least here in Germany when a parcel actually arrives it gets scanned as "arrived at inward office of exchange" and it then proceeds to "in customs". It has taken some parcels over 2 weeks to hop from dispatch to arrival and I doubt that they were laying at Frankfurt Airport for that time and rather think they were in Osaka/Tokyo waiting to be put in a plane.

But yeah, usually (in normal times) ca. 15h hours after being dispatched the parcels arrived.

[maihama eki]

Out of nowhere ... I received a package from HS today.  It was an order that I placed on April 10 during that short period of time when they were accepting orders from the US as long as EMS shipping was selected.  The tracking for the package looks like below.  Since it arrived in San Francisco, I am guessing it finally made it onto the once daily United flight between Tokyo and San Fran.

Edited June 24, 2020 by maihama eki

[Cat]

Hobby Search just announce that they now have DHL.

For small orders, I still might opt for the cheap ride on the slow boat.  But for key items we would like to have sooner rather than 1–6 months, I can now consider shopping from them again.

My big order that went to the airport and back, was sent to the docks for shipment on 8 June, — here's hoping that one manages to catch one of the faster boats!  DHL charges by volume, so that would have been noticeably more expensive by air, but it does have a number of key components in it.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Cat

[cteno4]

It will be interesting to hear how the old surface mail goes! 
 

jeff

[Cat]

Well, we're certainly hoping it goes well, that's for sure.  The inexpensive surface shipping option is still a very tempting one.  I was just looking at our June pre-orders that haven't all come in yet, and debating changing the shipping or not.  Decided to keep the cheap boat ride, none of them are critically needed fast.

[cteno4]

Good news is HS entry rate for DHL is 2067 yen, cheaper than hlj af about 2600 yen.

 

jeff

[brill27mcb]

10 hours ago, Cat said:

...DHL charges by volume...

 

Do we know what the basic minimum DHL volume is? In other words, how much we can fit into a box and still be at the basic rate?

 

I recently bought some Tomytec power chassis from Plaza Japan on ebay.com, after they were able to list items again using DHL shipping. The indicated shipping cost on Ebay was US$24 (probably 2600 yen) for the first one, and it went up US$12 for each additional chassis, so for 4 chassis the apparent total was US$60. However, reading their listings carefully, I saw that they said the indicated shipping costs were there to meet Ebay's system requirements, and buyers should put everything in their cart and then request an invoice before paying, to see the real calculated amount. I did this, and the total was US$24 - no extra cost for shipping 3 more chassis. (Plaza Japan's pre-COVID shipping cost for a single power chassis to the U.S. would have been US$6.80, so I could convince myself that US$6 each for the 4 of them was reasonable enough to go ahead.)

 

If we can get some idea of the volume limits, it would help us to make the shipping costs we pay more reasonable.

 

Rich K.

[cteno4]

Rich,

 

it’s not clear exactly what the volumes and weight minimums are but there are some with DHL from japan to the us, from my recent hlj order of stuff sitting there a long time it sat at their minimum for a very long time as I added stuff to the shipping list, so it appears to be quite a bit. At HS you can add stuff to your cart and check with a partial checkout to see the cost of the DHL shipping now, so that can give you an idea.
 

amazon.co.jp also has a minimum DHL, but it’s lower and things start adding to cost as you add things right away, but pretty slowly. I’m sure their volume with DHL gets them a better deal and may be a different rate structure.

 

plaza has always had that issue with the ebay shipping system and usually their single order shipping amount can usually cover a few items (if not large) always have to ask them to combine and then usually similar to other suppliers on shipping cost (use to be a tad more but not horrid).
 

jeff

[Cat]

I haven't been able to ferret out any info on DHL volumes. 

With the way we've been ordering this year for layout building, I know not of this minimum cost entry rate you speak of.
: 3

Just put in a 1999 order with stuff that's been hanging in my cart that HLJ doesn't stock, plus a few back-order items.  Broke down and went with DHL at 3,718¥ instead of surface at 2,350¥.

[defor]

!!! I've been ordering tons from Amazon Japan via DHL for the last couple months, and shipping has been very reasonable.

Also had two orders with HLJ as well that were very affordable...

Just had my Buyee shipment consolidated and !!!

 

International Shipping Fee
(From Buyee to your Address) 19,489 yen

Package Consolidation Fee 1,000 yen

Protective Packaging Fee 1,500 yen

Domestic Shipping Fee(From seller to Buyee) 6,898 yen

Shipping Cost Total: 28,887 yen

 

I was expecting a high domestic shipping due to the number of items, but that DHL rate is crazy!

(I normally don't opt for protective packing, but I've got a lot of locomotives in here)

[Cat]

Eeks.  On the plus side, the protective packaging didn't add very much to the total shipping cost at all.

[cteno4]

DHL and FedEx ex have do some screwie volume and weight when things get larger, but that’s quite a fee! I remember this shipping equipment from Canada to the us for jobs. Luckily one supplier was wise to it and saved us a lot on a project breaking things into the right chunks for optimal shipping.

 

i was amazed that the DHL I just got from HS was only $32 DHL and it was a good sized box and at least 1.5kg. It would have been $35 to ship it in the us plain old priority due to a dimension being >12” which jacks up the price a lot.

 

im guessing Ems and Sal will be suspended for a while here to the US as I doubt there will be any increased (and maybe some decreases) in passenger flights. Japan post has not mentioned trying to use other cargo shipping for their stuff, Australia Post was chartering cargo flights a month or so ago to help with reduced passenger flights they usually used but were still estimating long delays in even express services to the us.

 

jeff