SAL 2kg shipping Limit

[cteno4]

I recently ran into a (not sure if new or not) limit on cheap SAL shipping at 2kg. at 2kg the SAL rated now revert to international parcel post rates which are almost as high as EMS and in a small range of weights is actually more! I had not know this before and i could have sworn i saw an sal table on japan post's site that had it pretty much half of ems up into the higher weights and even testing some weight in their postage calculator. always knew the best deal for sal was small packets for the small items, but had never seen it revert to this other scale at 2kg. maybe the parcel post rate went way up or the first order i have done over 2kg sal, but i dont think so!

 

anyhow make sure that if your order is over 2kg either split it into two orders if you want cheap sal shipping or go all the way for ems and get tracking, speed, and insurance for about the same cost!

 

hw has a nice table up on their site with the price comparisons:

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/ems_sal.aspx

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest ___]

2Kg is incredibly light. I can't image there being much I could order from Japan that lays under 2kg unless they omit all the padding and packing material.

[cteno4]

2Kg is incredibly light. I can't image there being much I could order from Japan that lays under 2kg unless they omit all the padding and packing material.

 

well 2kg is 4.4lbs, and thats almost a brick. a standard boxed 6 car train set weighs in at about 700g, so you would only hit this limit if you ordered 3 sets at a time. i have had packages come sal that were in the $15 range sal that had a train set, few greenmax kits and a few other assorted things, so you can get quite a bit in under 2kg. I know as most all my orders are SAL and the skynet apartments were the first time i ran into the big shipping charges by going over the 2kg limit.

 

makes me think that the unitram will have to come ems as i bet that ways in at over 2kg. maybe just the track will make it in under the limit! that jump over 2kg adds $30 to the shipping!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest ___]

You failed to take in to account the weight of the box and packing as well. At the moment, I'm working 65/wk in a pack station, and can tell ya it adds up fast, REALLY fast, even that bubble wrap and air pillows puts a package at 4kg domestically pretty fast. This shipper in this case SAL is does not gauge this on the weight of the internal contents only, but the total weight.

[cteno4]

still a good sized order for me would be maybe a train, couple of buildings, and a few odds and ends and it never pokes above 2kg with packaging for me (believe my credit card there have been a lot of these...). hw boxes are actually not too heavy, just good solid 1 ply cardboard, hs on the other hand does have hefty weight boxes being 2 ply cardboard, and heavy butcher paper packing, but those are all ems! :-p

 

i did a quick test at hw on sal and two 7 car ma sets (bout 770g ea) make it for shipping under 2kg, so their packaging must be 450g as if i added something like 100g it put it over 2kg. so you can still ship 2 train sets for under the 2kg limit.

 

anyhow its something to look out for if you do a pre order on something and they dont have the weight of the product yet when you put the pre order in.

 

BTW HW will let you change your shipping BEFORE you pay if you email them. once you pay they dont want to change it as they need to back out the charge and redo the order and payment.

 

still see SAL as a great way to save money on the trains if you can stand the wait! figure i have saved like $2k over all my orders using sal, so thats a lot of money for self insurance if something does break or go poof in sal and a lot more $$ for trains!

 

the down side to sal is that i am much more likely to pick up a few little things here and there as they end up shipping for like $5-6! makes it way to tempting, but fun when the little packets show up with a few goodies.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[jappomania]

Hi!

Yes, SAL is a good method, unfortunatelly not from Italy today, but in the past I used this method.

I don't know how work your reseller but with Rainbowten I ask to Mr.Nao to split my orders in more than one box to remain under 2 Kg.limits (in the last 10 years this was the normal rule ;-)

maybe if you ask the reply can be "Yes, we can" 

 

ciao

Massimo