What's your USA shipping experience?

HuubL

HuubL

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In the past I've bought and sold many items here and on international eBay and such sites and usually the items were delivered within reasonable shipping times. Shipment from and to the USA in my experience took the longest, but mostly things were delivered within two weeks. About a month ago I sold some items here in RFF's Classifieds. All items were sent through TNT Post in the Netherlands and most were delivered within 7-10 days after shipment. Only one is still not delivered. It was sent to the US and it has been underway now for 4 weeks.
What is your experience with shipping to the USA? Must I consider the package lost?

I tried to post this earlier in the Off topic forum, but that doesn't seem to be active anymore. At least I don't see the post in the aggregated thread. If it shows up later, sorry, for posting this twice.
 
On the receiving end- I've had it vary wildly. Anywhere from a week to 8 weeks when sent via Airmail.

Surface Mail- flip a coin. The majority had problems: Two items arrived with boxes beat into a round shape, three items never received.
 
I once ordered a lens from the USA through ebay, took about two weeks, had to pay the standard €10 douane costs.
Another experience was me ordering film through Adorama, 5 packs of 4x5inch film (it's almost three times cheaper on adorama than in stores here) anyway paid shipping etc. When it arrived here in Belgium/got delivered by UPS I had to pay about €40 extra ... including the standard shipping costs it put me back pretty much as much as buying it in a shop here. So not much of a good experience. + the customer service of UPS kinda sucks ... they almost sent my package back to the USA ..
And more recently I bought a Vinyl LP from the USA ... and it's taking quite some time .. It still hasn't arrived (about three weeks ago I ordered it from Ebay)
 
You are best to avoid Global Express mail, UPS, and Fed-Ex when it comes to paying customs. I sent a Nikon S3 with lenses to France for a trade. I sent the camera for an inspection period, no money or equipment exchanged. The French Customs demanded that the recipient pay the equivalent of $400 customs, based on them looking up the model and type of camera. It was refused, and came back to me.
 
I have had 3 expensive purchases from the US, all delivered very quickly, with the boxes and contents in perfect condition. I think they were all US Postal Service.
 
USA to rest of the world seems OK, the problem is importing into the USA from abroad. Could have to do with security scanning...
 
I guess you don't have tracking on your packages? I've found USPS and EMS tracking works pretty well. I've only ever had one problem with stuff coming into the US and that was a dSLR that I bought a couple years ago from Scotland; I got stung with the notorious UPS "customs clearance" fee.

I bought and sold a lot overseas and I've always used USPS to ship and now require Postal Service shipping from overseas, if the seller will only use FedEx, UPS, DHL et al I refuse to buy. The tracking on postal packages is good, I bought a Leica part from Cyprus recently and could track it through EMS from Larnaca. It was held up for two days at JFK because of security so you may be right. So long as it's still camera gear there should be no holdup in customs.
 
marnicq said:
Another experience was me ordering film through Adorama, 5 packs of 4x5inch film (it's almost three times cheaper on adorama than in stores here) anyway paid shipping etc.....
Click to expand...

Thank you for your Adorama business - and I'm sorry that the additional fees were a disappointment. If you are ordering film in the future, I suggest you contact me first for a USPS quote, which should save you money: HelenO@adorama.com


http://twitter.com/HelenOster




 
I have shipped few packages to US from Germany - all via DHL. All took about 4 - 7 weeks. Those that were small enough to be shipped like letters took usually shorter (around 2 weeks).

With DHL paying for "express" option proved to be nonsense. DHL looses any tracking information once the package leaves Germany.
 
Europe To USA - 10 days.
Hong Kong to USA - 7-10 days.

Half-ton AGA cooker - 10 days. (Dealer - Cheshire)
Leica lens and VF from Holland in Sept, 10 days. (Dealer - 'dam)
'Blad crank from Budapest, 10 days. (Dealer)
Yesterday received (NY) a 4x5 paterson tank rack sold on ebay by MOD Photography in London. 10 days.

A lot depends on your knowledge of your local shipping methods and regulations. These folks all knew best methods. A lot of ebay folks don't.

(I used to overnight ship motorcycles to London and Switzerland - you must know how the bureaucracy works.)
 
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Matus: I'm not 'in the know' for Germany.

You would think DHL - formerly a US company, now owned by Deutsche Bundespost would be best, but it had a poor reputation and limited coverage here before DBP, which hasn't improved.

Most of the packages I receive here come from the state postal services.

We need to do an accurate test; please go down to Solms and see if you can get them to send me a 35mm f1.4 Summilux to appropriately grade the speed and quality of DBP's and USPS international service.

- Charlie
 
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I shipped a box to the Netherlands by USPS Flat Rate box, and I think it was like 10 days to two weeks. I little expensive though for postage, I don't know if there was any customs or not.
 
Huub,

I sent a lens from Switzerland while on holidays there, and included a return address in the Netherlands.

The parcel was off the grid for weeks, then showed up in Switzerland again after my inquiry with Swiss Post.

They repackaged it, sent it over to me and I sent it on to the NY area again. Second time, it did arrive. All in all, two months had passed.

The buyer of the lens thought the Swiss Post & Dutch address might have gotten US customs suspicious. That, and the small vintage Komura 80/3.5 lens did after all look like a pipe bomb, I suspect...

Huub, make sure it hasn't bounced and was returned!? Your buyer should ask USPS to see if there's any parcel on its way to him, and ask for the updated US barcode number (this is what TNT post does with foreign parcels, re-sticker them with a Dutch barcode).

Good luck on completing the deal!
 
When shipping stuff I almost always use USPS Priority Mail, some times eating some of the shipping costs and it works very well. Even slow stuff gets there pretty well. The key I find is paying a bit more for track-ability. Tells you if it's sitting in customers or in route. IMHO, worth the extra cash.

Worst case of receiving stuff was from Down Under (nobody here), a small Evil Nikkor piece for my Fs took a month. No tracking, no way to see it was actually in route. Came damaged (slow, oily aperture) and had to get it CLAed which added 50% to the cost of the lens (read still feel pissed to this day).

B2 (;->
 
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