High Shipping Price?

I was wondering if anyone had noticed a increased price in international shipping from Japan lately? I have not been watching it incredibly closely, but in the last month it seems to have risen 15-30USD. Also a lot of my US Ebay packages have taken a long time (1-3 weeks) to be delivered/ arrive lately.

maybe the canal blockage caused confusion and delay to the delivery haha. 

On a serious note, my country's postal service experiences higher than normal volume of parcels and mails due to covid.  In fact one of the postal facility experienced a massive covid outbreak.  it was so severe to the point where the facility had to be shut down for 14 days several months ago.

[Super]

I haven't had much experience with International shipping since the Chinese Virus was laid upon us all but besides Amazon Japan (which still has good prices) I was slammed once with an exorbitant amount so I had to opt for the 'slow boat' method which took even longer (3 mo) in these lock down times. Because of this I don't even browse the Japan Auctions any more like I did before because of getting whacked by the shipping cost. Even domestic shipping here in the US has gone up and time has been erratic.

I would like to hear more from our members who have still bought and have had shipped internationally in the last year.

Shipping experience in the past 12 months:
- Japan - Good - except some options from Japan Post not available. It is likely you will need to use DHL.
- USA - Good - tracking is not accurate
- Australia - Slow, unreliable tracking due to increased parcel demand due to the pandemic.
- China - Faster than before...surprisingly

It would be interesting to know what it is like in Europe.

-plarnold

It would be interesting to know what it is like in Europe.

Between the European Union and the UK it is ******* dreadful.

Nothing to do with Covid though, this is fallout from the "uninterrupted free trade" (not that anyone even remotely sane believed this for a second) we were promised as a result of Brexit. I am currently waiting for a package from France that has been returned to the sender TWICE as a result of allegedly incorrect customs documentation. Neither the sender nor myself can see anything wrong with the docs that have been supplied, which are entirely open and honest about the contents and their value.

Japan to UK seems to be much the same as it always was, except that SAL is not an option.

@Chrisjo, I could not agree more! We have sent a few things (like cards) between us and relatives in Poland, and a lot of that stuff never arrived/or arrived very late. Our relatives have all been having the same problem, even my uncle, who lives in Spain, has also had bother with the dreadful postage.

I just got a very small package ready to ship(only two coaches), and it was the same price as usual to ship. I was checking the price of combining several bulk items, and it said it would be about $400. One thing I noticed was the exchange rate is good right now. I saw on my Paypal 14600 Yen was only 138USD. The packing fees might have gone up instead of the shipping, or maybe my bulk lots were just a little larger then I thought.

[Super]

Yes, size and weight can destroy your wallet for sure.

I just got a very small package ready to ship(only two coaches), and it was the same price as usual to ship. I was checking the price of combining several bulk items, and it said it would be about $400. One thing I noticed was the exchange rate is good right now. I saw on my Paypal 14600 Yen was only 138USD. The packing fees might have gone up instead of the shipping, or maybe my bulk lots were just a little larger then I thought.

It may depend on how they pack the multiple items together.
Most times they are packed very well to avoid any issues during transport. Sometimes it can be excessive and it pushes the shipping to the next size box which will have higher prices.

@chrisjo,
Now that you mention that SAL is not available, I think that may be the case as well for Australia.

-plarnold

[Super]

It may depend on how they pack the multiple items together.
Sometimes it can be excessive and it pushes the shipping to the next size box which will have higher prices.

Boy, that was very true with some large packages I got from Japamart. They used oversized boxes for large shipments, so oversized that they used many other, empty, used, boxes to take up all the vacant areas of the oversized box. Not only does this add lots of excess weight, it adds to the overall dimensions of the package which dives up the cost of shipping the package. This mostly occurred with large shipments which compounded the cost.