SAL Shipping

[cteno4]

The small air packet I think usually only works for light stuff. I like air mail ( cheapest way for very small parts of a few oz). I’ve had ebay parts and small things in smaller envelopes come this way pretty cheap and usually under a week. I think a couple were registered as I signed for them but never noticed the speed of registered vs unregistered other than getting my butt to the post if I missed the delivery or our lazy fill in driver does not want to walk to the front door (he does this a lot as well as drops packages along his route that luckily neighbors find and drop off. This was the same chap that tried to get me to pay $10 duty on a package from China that just had $10 written in as customs value which he insisted was customs fee owed! I told him leave me a slip and I would pay it at the post office and went in and picked up the package and talke to the postmaster who is a total jerk who said I was lying! Needless to say he has a letter on him I sent in...

 

Its always a bit of scratching your head when you look at japan post pages on all these and never seems to quite line up with what you see at shops totally.

 

sal parcel is for larger packages but usually is almost as expensive as ems! I don’t quite get it. Use to be sal parcel was more expensive than ems from like 2-7kg, but now it’s pretty much just below ems all the way except being a bit higher 1-1.5kg (this changed with the boost to ems rates a few years back). It seems very odd, but it may allow larger package dimensions or something and ems is usually only 10-25% more and you get the speed.

 

It’s the sal small packet (not parcel) under 2kg where the cheaper sal is and it’s limit is 2kg and some max box dimensions if memory serves me right.

 

Jeff

[bill937ca]

There has been an update on this subject (and just in case some of you are following this thread) I will post here too. 

 

2018/11/26

For certain countries, the "SAL" shipment has been stopped since December 2017.
As this problem has been continuing for almost a year, we are introducing  new shipping option called "ePacket Light" scheduled to be added after 6th December 2018.

For details of ePacket Light shipment, please check the Japan Post website below.
[Japan Post website: ePacket Light]
https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/service/epacketlight_en.html

For customers from the following countries, ePacket Light will replace Registered SAL and SAL Small Packet.
France / Spain / the Netherlands

For customers from the following countries, we are afraid only EMS will be available for shipment.
Ukraine / Algeria

Due to the SAL shipment being very unlikely to be return anytime soon, we will also be changing the shipping options for all orders from the affected countries.

For customers from France, Spain, and the Netherlands, the orders will be changed as follows.

- "SAL Parcel" will be change to "EMS"
- "SAL Small Packet" will be change to "ePacket Light"
- "Registered SAL" will be change to "ePacket Light"
- "If possible" options for EMS will all be changed to "ePacket Light if possible"

For customers from Ukraine or Algeria, all orders will be changed to EMS.

To check your current shipping options or updating order information, 
please use your account page.

 

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

 

 

 

There has been a discussion going on in the Hobby Search thread.   

 

[katoftw]

Items sent 28th of Feb, still awaiting arrival.  I think this is my worst/longest wait for SAL.  6 weeks and counting.

[Yavianice]

22 hours ago, katoftw said:

Items sent 28th of Feb, still awaiting arrival.  I think this is my worst/longest wait for SAL.  6 weeks and counting.

Item sent on valentines day, arrived today with SAL 😀 Even the tracking website stopped tracking it.

Edited April 15, 2019 by Yavianice

[cteno4]

Bummer. It’s been back to the pretty standard and 12-14 days here for the last 6 months. It had got up to like 3.5 weeks for a couple. They have all eventually showed up here. I’ve figured the variances we have here now and then are due to varying air freight contracts and scheduling and backups at our customs inspections.

 

Best of luck.

 

jeff

[chadbag]

I know the new ePacket stuff many of the Japanese vendors have started using seems to be much faster than SAL

[katoftw]

ePAcket has always been faster.  Half the time frame of SAL normally.

[Sheffie]

Yeah. Hobby Search info says ePacket Light is the same speed, just more expensive. So I never used it. 

 

My delivery times from Japan, 

with Registered SAL: 26,29,22,20,18,14 days

ePacket Light: 16 and 10 days

EMS: 5 and 4 days

[chadbag]

My SAL usually take about 3-4 weeks, and registered SAL a bit longer.  ePacket Light about 10-14 days.  EMS 4-7 days.

 

DHL -- 3 days 🙂

 

[disturbman]

My first ePacket light was delivered in 3 days. The two others about 10 days. The only difference between the first package and the two others, the first package was shipped on the day. The other waited at HS for some days before pick up. My impression is ePacket light packages are picked up once a week at HS.

[bill937ca]

How's your SAL?  I came across this notice on the Mandarake website dated May 20, 2019:

 

SAL Delays

We have heard that some of our post offices are still suffering a back log with SAL shipments from Golden Week. As is mentioned on the Shipping Optionshelp page, SAL shipments can usually take up to a month to reach their destination. If you do select SAL as a shipping method please anticipate a much longer delay than usual. If you need your package to arrive quickly, please select EMS or DHL Express as your shipping method.

May 20, 2019

[cteno4]

Still coming just about 2 weeks here. One just showed up from mtp.

 

jeff

[Keith]

I ordered something from HS, it despatched on 1 May and arrived in Australia 15 May, it then took another 5 days to get to me.

[bill937ca]

A welcome new notice from Hobby Search.

 

2019/07/01Although Japan Post’s mail service of SAL to following countries were suspended since December 18th.2017,
we are glad to inform that SAL shipment service will finally resume as of July 1st, 2019 (Japan time GMT+9).

- France
- Netherlands
- Spain
- Ukraine (excluding Crimea and Sevastopol)
- Algeria

 

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

[Sascha]

So my first unregistered SAL order never showed. Went out March 6th.Going back to registered.Luckily only $20 lost.

[bill937ca]

Never happened to me since April 2007.

[cteno4]

Bummer, sorry to hear that. Ive never lost one in 20 years and there have been way too many over the years!

 

Ive looked at the savings I’ve gotten over the years vs ems (registered sal was not around until recently with many places) and after like 7 or 8 packages I’d saved the cost of an average shipment so I just looked at it as being self insured from then on and more money for trains. With the $4 registration charge that takes more packages to get your self insurance paid up though. Tracking may help locate a missing package but a number of tracked packages lost other systems (usps, ups, fedex, DHL) usually ended up only telling where it went poof and didn’t end up getting me the lost package, a few did though.

 

sorry for your loss I hope it was something you could order again!

 

jeff