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

[Sheffie]

I tried making a purchase at Hobby Search the other day, and ultimately I was defeated by their shipping page. 

 

Near the top of the page it said that based on my location there were two options, neither of which I recognized and both of which used the word “surface”. 

 

Then it said that for all other shipment methods, packages would be held until restrictions had been lifted. 

 

Then it gave ave me a list of available options including some more unfamiliar choices, one of which was more expensive than EMS and perhaps faster. 

 

That sounds like exactly what I want, but it wasn’t on the list of options for North America. 

 

So my choices were, to pay a pittance for shipping and risk having my items on a slow boat in mid pacific when restrictions are lifted, thus getting overtaken by cheap air shipments made months later... or... pay premium shipping costs and risk my parcel waiting months before taking a couple of days to be actually shipped. (Because unless HS made a mistake, that premium option should not have been a valid choice for me.)

 

In the end I just gave up. Rather like The Witcher, when given a chance to choose the lesser evil, I prefer not to choose at all. 

 

I feel sorry for HS and all the other Japanese dealers but this just doesn’t seem like a sensible time to buy. 

[roadstar_na6]

It took HS quite a while to ship the parcel after I ordered something last week but I guess it‘s now already in Germany and I‘ll get a letter from the customs office in two weeks. Fingers crossed.

[bill937ca]

A long delayed EMS shipment has finally left Japan on May 17th. it was shipped April 13th.  A second parcel shipped April 23rd is still waiting for a plane. i should get the first parcel sometime this week or next week.

Edited May 18, 2020 by bill937ca

[Kamome]

The state of emergency has now been lifted so businesses and schools are starting to go back to some sense of normality in most areas. Either from this week or next week. Tokyo may be a little different although cases of new infections have been relatively low compared with previous weeks. 
 

There will certainly be a back log of mail to deal with but I would imagine we’ll see businesses removing delay notices from their websites over the next few weeks. I have ordered a few things from Ami Ami but even the picking of items seemed to take a longer time than usual, so even domestic shipping has been slower too. I guess we’ll all have to be patient and be understanding that railway models are not a priority during a world pandemic. Let’s hope all those working for these companies throughout this crisis have been safe and said businesses have taken suitable precautions to support their staff’s welfare.

[railsquid]

58 minutes ago, Kamome said:

The state of emergency has now been lifted so businesses and schools are starting to go back to some sense of normality in most areas. Either from this week or next week. Tokyo may be a little different although cases of new infections have been relatively low compared with previous weeks.

 

Still under the nominal "state of emergency", as are Osaka and a couple of other areas, but business are gradually opening up.

 

However delivery of overseas orders will still be dependent on increased availability of international flights.

[maihama eki]

On 5/16/2020 at 8:58 AM, Sheffie said:

I tried making a purchase at Hobby Search the other day, and ultimately I was defeated by their shipping page. 

 

I feel sorry for HS and all the other Japanese dealers but this just doesn’t seem like a sensible time to buy. 

 

I completely agree with that sentiment regarding Hobby Search for those of us in the U.S.

 

If you haven't seen this page, it explains a lot:

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/covid-19faq_e.html

 

This pretty much sums up the situation: "Due to the suspension of many shipments by Japan Post, we are currently holding very many orders for our customers, to a point we are required to rent extra storage space."

 

Adding more orders to the pile doesn't make sense to me.

 

I see this for the first time too:

"We are also planning to introduce DHL shipping, although this may take some time due to system difficulties."

Edited May 19, 2020 by maihama eki

[Cat]

Plaza Japan is back running on EBay.  Well, sort of, ouch the shipping to the US — $24 for the first item, $12 for each additional.  DHL Express from their website info.

 

Umm, I"ll start my indexing at 0 for awhile.

Edit: running the shipping on their own website is a bit better, but still too steep for a few small items.  3 packs of Kato delivery vans shipping for 2040¥.  The stock numbers are dropping fast though, they'll probably be sold out by the time I finish typing this.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Cat

[Cat]

Oh well, a SAL package that HLJ shipped on 28 March just bounced back to them.  They're working on restocking stuff to Private Warehouse status and we're on the cusp of requesting a FedEx shipment from them soon anyway, so this will sort out.

We still have one package floating out there somewhere, Plaza Japan shipped on 1 April.

 

Still really hoping Hobby Search sorts out their operations and better shipping options sometime soon.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Cat

[roadstar_na6]

I also got a mail from HLJ today that my parcel is back at them. It shipped March 19th 😞

Great...

[Martijn Meerts]

I shipped a small package to Japan last weekend, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes the other way around. Other than that, RG-Rokko is getting some more stuff for me for my H0 project, so that too will be interesting. Wonder which options they'll have for shipping.

[roadstar_na6]

3 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Wonder which options they'll have for shipping.

 

If you have friends or relatives in Germany it could be an option to ship it there 😄 if nothing works shipped to NL

[Martijn Meerts]

I do, but I'm pretty sure at least DHL still delivers here if nothing else. I'm not in a hurry to get the items really, none of them are critical as such. Of course, it does include some wheels and couplers in order to make some trains complete, but as of yet, I can't really run them yet anyway. Other than that there is also of course the whole "I ordered it, so I want it NOW!" feeling 😉

 

[roadstar_na6]

8 hours ago, roadstar_na6 said:

I also got a mail from HLJ today that my parcel is back at them. It shipped March 19th 😞

Great...

And it's back on its way with FedEx 😄 Let's see how that goes

[Yavianice]

New updates from Japan Post,

 

some more countries are added to the "no mail accepted" list. Status for key countries, such as U.S., remain unchanged.

 

The first post in this thread has been updated accordingly. 

 

[cteno4]

So an odd thing just happened to an amazon.co.jp order from last week of some sankei and a woody joe, their shipping jumped from a week to 6-8 weeks today! All items were in stock while ordered, it was really odd.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Going the other way, over the last couple of days I've received some post from the UK over the past couple of days which was sent out last week, and arrived in the usual time (and also a book which was apparently dispatched 2 months ago), so maybe things are starting to improve a little.

[Cat]

Drat, drat, and double drat.  Just got another note from Hobby Search asking us to change the shipping on the package that returned to them to the slow boat option.  There was no mention of any possibility of them adding a DHL option as they did in the original request back in April.  So, slow boat it is, plus it will take them some time to work through the mountain of packages that bounced back to them.

I had been hoping that the DHL deal would be worked out sometime after Golden Week, but that was looking less and less likely as we came up to and then hit June.

[bill937ca]

Be careful what you order from China. US airplanes are barred from China and now Chinese planes will be barred from the US

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/reuters-trump-china-1.5596578

Edited June 3, 2020 by bill937ca

[katoftw]

10 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Be careful what you order from China. US airplanes are barred from China and now Chinese planes will be barred from the US

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/reuters-trump-china-1.5596578

Dont panic. It is an attempt to get USA planes in chinese airspace again. Otherwise he wouldn't allow 15 days for it to begin.

Edited June 4, 2020 by katoftw

[maihama eki]

12 hours ago, Cat said:

Drat, drat, and double drat.  Just got another note from Hobby Search asking us to change the shipping on the package that returned to them to the slow boat option.  There was no mention of any possibility of them adding a DHL option as they did in the original request back in April.  So, slow boat it is, plus it will take them some time to work through the mountain of packages that bounced back to them.

I had been hoping that the DHL deal would be worked out sometime after Golden Week, but that was looking less and less likely as we came up to and then hit June.

 

I got a similar email, but mine said:

 

"We are also working to introduce DHL to our shipping options, but this is taking much longer than initially expected.

 

If you can wait, this may be an option for you.

We greatly appreciate your understanding of this matter, thank you very much in advance."

[Cat]

That note was in the email I got from them earlier in April as well, but not in the one we just got.  As it has been well over a month now since they first said they might get DHL, but have not yet, we decided it was time to ask for the surface shipment.  This order does have a number of critical turnouts and track for our layout.  So now, it's just a game of roulette to see when we can get them here.

[ranger10178]

I ordered something on eBay on the 25th of May. The seller told me it wouldn't be posted till the 31st, which is fair enough, as they were actually working away from home and wouldn't be returning till the 30th.

 

When I checked the tracking today, It's already arrived in the UK and was cleared through customs in 40 mins! Considering it was posted via SAL, I'm very impressed! Indeed I had thought SAL had been suspended to the UK!  Either I'm just really lucky, or SAL has resumed!

[railsquid]

2 minutes ago, ranger10178 said:

I ordered something on eBay on the 25th of May. The seller told me it wouldn't be posted till the 31st, which is fair enough, as they were actually working away from home and wouldn't be returning till the 30th.

 

When I checked the tracking today, It's already arrived in the UK and was cleared through customs in 40 mins! Considering it was posted via SAL, I'm very impressed! Indeed I had thought SAL had been suspended to the UK!  Either I'm just really lucky, or SAL has resumed!

 

I don't know about SAL, but in the other direction normal post from the UK to Japan appears to have got back to normal in the past week or so.

[ranger10178]

That's good news! Hopefully places like Plaza Japan will start to lower their vastly inflated postage costs et cetera!

[Cat]

We still have a small Plaza Japan package floating out there in the void that was shipped on 1 April.  No clue yet if it is coming here or more likely bouncing back there.