SAL Shipping

[cteno4]

Yea! Always a good feeling when you open the mail box or the post rings and the long awaited package is there! Enjoy!

 

Jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Not lost, but my latest package has gone from Osaka to Amsterdam to Kanagawa to Tokyo and back to Amsterdam again. I believe it may have been delivered today ;)

[cteno4]

Hope they put the destination stickers all oner it to show its world tour! Maybe you can get some frequent flyer miles for the extra rt flight...

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Not lost, but my latest package has gone from Osaka to Amsterdam to Kanagawa to Tokyo and back to Amsterdam again. I believe it may have been delivered today ;)

Haha

I remember a order I did once from Canada.  It took 6 weeks to arrive and thought is was actually long lost.  So for Canada to Australia, it went via a EU country (I forgot which now), Kuwait and Singapore.  Had all the ink stamps on it.

 

Normally would been LAX, Honolulu (sometimes), Sydney.

Edited February 11, 2014 by katoftw

[Szepessy]

Hi

 

Not a single SAL or EMS shipment has been lost since 2012 to Austria from Japan. The amount of orders are more than 100.

Very reliable !

 

bye, Tibor

[katoftw]

I have a SAL parcel missing or would be soon to be missing.  Currently has been in transit for 27 days.  Although not abnormal for most countries that timeframe, I have always got mine in 10-14 days for my location.  I have only had one go longer, and that was 21 days over an Easter holiday break.

 

I've had a chat to the family members, neighbours and local post service, and also contacted the retailer to see if they have had any returned parcels.  But to no avail.

 

Will contine to wait at the front door for the postman on a daily basis until it arrives. haha

Edited September 8, 2014 by katoftw

[brill27mcb]

My dog does this daily, too. The mailman is her life-long nemesis...

 

katoftw wrote:

Will continue to wait at the front door for the postman on a daily basis until it arrives. haha

Edited September 9, 2014 by brill27mcb

[keitaro]

I`m sure it will arrive, some times they just get routed wrong.

 

I sent an ems parcel to Italy once and for some reason it landed in Germany and traveled by land to Italy 0.o

 

Maybe yours landed on Christmas island and waits for refugee status.

[katoftw]

And it turned up today.  Longest wait by far, and double the maximum average.

[cteno4]

Yayyyyyy!!!!

 

Patience pays off! Once and a while an sal gets stuck for a bit somewhere in the system, but probably up to over 200 for me over the years and they have all turned up. One was 4 weeks and a handful 3 weeks, rest right around 2 weeks with a few small ones at a week.

 

Jeff

[Sean]

I sell stuff (not train stuff) online as a side thing and mostly send stuff SAL.  I`ve probably sent about 500 packages from Japan via SAL to countries all over the world and have never had a single one go missing, so it is definitely reliable. 

 

The main drawback is the timing though, sometimes stuff takes 1 week to North America, then the next month it will take 3 or 4 weeks.  It is very unpredictable like that.

[katoftw]

Well somewhere between Asakusa Japan and Beerwah Australia it got a huge delay this time. Either way it has turned up and I'm happy.

[E6系]

"Beerwah" ... I'll have to look that up!

 

:D

[cteno4]

Freelance,

 

Sorry to hear you had a package go poof. I think you will find a large experience here on the forum with folks all over the world with excellent experiences ordering from japan and the shipping.

 

Totally the opposite of my experience, hundreds off Sal packages over the last 15 years or so and not one gone poof. Just the opposite they have been pretty much like clockwork at about two weeks for Sal. Only variation was this winter when they took 3-4 weeks due to some pile up on the us end (weather, customs it was never really explained.) lots of packages from plazajapan since they first started as well and all have arrived. I have had more lost packages from us hobby supplies (3 in the last 15 years or so) than from Japanese.

 

I also get hundreds of little part packages from china via China post (99 cent ebay stuff) and only one has gone poof on me.

 

I think most U.S. retailers don't carry much Japanese or European models as it's tough for them to get into the distribution chain in Europe or Japan, not due to issues shipping or actual supply chain problems. In japan the distribution chain tends to have more layers than the traditional us chain so not as lucrative. Also they would most likely need to speak Japanese or have a japanese agent to set up distribution deals. there was a successful hobby shop in the us that was bringing over Japanese trains, and finetrak and did well doing it with no troubles on the japan end or shipping, it was only his tragic death that shut the business down. Monke imports did a fine business importing most all the green max kits and tomix buildings we got in the us for 35 years. Only ended with his retirement.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited April 21, 2015 by cteno4

[velotrain]

AFAIK all the Japanese retailers are willing to ship by whatever method you prefer, although I do find that with HS it's somewhat more hidden than when using David or Noriichi.  Sometimes I'll ask for SAL registered, which I think includes some insurance, but I'm not really sure why, as nothing has gone missing over some 20 shipments.  My experience is that the sellers seem to prefer EMS for more valuable content, but I wonder if even that is necessary.  I think there's actually four levels of SAL, but the upper end gets close to the EMS price.

 

I don't understand your reasoning, as it is far cheaper to buy from HS, L1H, or MT+ than PJ, and far, far less than buying in the US - even with postage.  By the same token, I buy directly from a large shop in Germany for almost anything that I want from Europe, and with the GST subtracted it's far less than I could get it from anyplace stateside.  Postage from the U.K. is quite expensive, but then it's probably no more than for us to send the equivalent item there.

 

I will say that if you are in the habit of buying one switch at a time, shipping will be a disproportionately high percentage of the total cost.  A major benefit of dealing with David and Noriichi is that - within reason, they will allow you to add items to your cart over a few weeks before shipping, and will let you add other things when a reserved item arrives.  Part of this is due to the fact that since this is a part-time business for each of them (they both have day jobs), they can't stock as diverse an inventory as the "big boys", so they may well need to order much of what you want from their wholesalers/distributors. 

 

> "Even the leading online hobby retailer here has cut back"

 

I don't know just what you mean by "here", but I just mentioned that MTS has recently added virtually all of the Tomytec line, although I've also heard that Walthers is now bringing Tomytec/Tomix? into the country.  I suspect that so few U.S. dealers carry Euro and Asian stuff because there's a much smaller demand than for American proto models - and the fact that the smart shoppers make their purchases at the source - well, not China (when applicable).

[katoftw]

Most retailer outside of Japan cannot compete with Japanese retailers low prices and Japan's low cost postage service.  That is why they don't bother with selling similar items.  It has nothing to do with supply chains etc.

Edited April 21, 2015 by katoftw

[velotrain]

Well - I'm rather retro myself, and if by 'old school' you mean that you prefer to buy as much as possible from your LHS, I also regret their gradual disappearance, but that's the result of the global online marketplace, and none of us can do anything to change "progress".

 

Yes - I do shop where I get the best value and service.

[cteno4]

Freelance,

 

Tomix is not blocked, they signed a distribution deal with walthers about 2 years back, but walthers seems to be putting a large export markup unfortunately and kind of ruining the deal for us buyers. For decades modei imports brought tomix and greenmax buildings over at wholesale prices to us local stores that they could offer prices very close to Japanese street prices. With the walthers distribution deal even huge shops like kliens cand discount enough to make a reasonable price. So I strongly expect it's walthers is screwing the pooch here as mokei made it possible for LHS to compete for a long time.

 

kato formed katusa a long time back as they saw a market for themselves here and found one big time making American models. They are a private company and can be different more easily, tomix is a subsidary of tomy a large toy company and much more Japanese corporate and harder for them to branch out. In addition the Japanese market is huge compared to the us market and tomix has the largest share of the Japanese market so they kept focused there, katousa is a fraction of kato japan and is kept that way by kato japan.

 

I would love to buy Japanese trains from us sources at reasonable prices and have from kliens (MTP), lees trains, and BT trains when they were supplying stuff. But the limited market in the us makes it pretty hard for any us store to do this. Kliens does it because they are a katousa distributor and have had a long relationship with kato, lees used moke up until his retirement, and bt trains had an old friend in Japan who acted as their Japanese agent.

 

So mostly our choice now from the us is either pay the walthers markup or buy form a us shop that exports Japanese trains and jacks the price 200-300%

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

Well that's who supplies many of the LHS now in the us and the only current us distributor importing Japanese trains and structures except for the small bits katousa does for a few limited stores.

 

Jeff

[Guest ___]

I loath Walters with a passion. I sure in hell would rather order from HobbySearch than pay $40 for a $6 Tomytec bus.

[cteno4]

Yeah the unfortunate 800lb gorilla these days. I did hear word that walther's competitor was waiting to jump at tomix if the walthers deal did not go thru, too bad.

 

Jeff

[Guest ___]

since TOMIX is my least favorite brand of the big three, I'm not as hurt by it as let's say it were MicroAce. Unless things have changed they do or at least did import KATO, Jp trains in the US.

[cteno4]

Yeah but tomytec buildings here and fine track at near Japanese retail would have been nice!

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

I think I might have had my first.  I have a e-packet/air-parcel that has a last update of "dispatched from the outward office" from Tokyo INT on the 22nd of September.  Still waiting...

[VJM]

According to David, the format of the To/From fields have changed and it has caused some confusion once it leaves Japan.  I had a SAL package from Loco1Hobby sent at the end of July, and somehow got turned around and ended up back with David 5 weeks later.  Fortunately David went to the local post office and yelled at them for a bit and resent with tracking.  Finally arrived this week.