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anonymous
Q: Does amazon.com ship to China?
It doesn't seem to be accepting my Chinese address
It depends on what you order. Some things they will, some they will not.
However, if you know someone who can read Chinese, there is Amazon.cn which is the China branch of Amazon.
I have tried several times as I wanted DVD VCD and certain books no joy what so ever.. I also use Amazon.cn I asked them also as their stister company had things I wanted didnt even get a reply. Oh and you dont need a Chinese to translate use the Google translater toolbar transltes all Chinese pages into Enlish what site you need this is very conveinient
The problem is you Amazon does not geolocate your IP address and just assumes everyone is based in the USA and therefore it shows you all items even the stuff that will not ship to China.
Read this as it has some great tips to follow
Yes, Amazon.com now directly ships to China.
There are obviously certain things that don't ship to China.
Well sorry, not obvious, but because of Chinese Customs regulations.. these basically include 'sensitive' items, so yes, many books don't ship and VCDs, DVDs don't ship at all.
However i ordered harry potter from America and it came no problem. i think this is because you can also buy it on jd.com for cheaper. (dumb move by me)
Although i ordered some where's waldo books and they have so far taken 1.5 months to arrive... i can't believe they are sensitive... and could incite revolution amongst the people or soemthing like this. BUt i digress..
Plant materials, meat, kitchen knives (somehow they are sometimes seen as weapons) and liquid milk or whatever looks like it might be milky substances don't pass through customs either... this is why some facial creams take a long time to be processed.
And also you have to take into account that Customs workers are not really told everything they are meant to know, the same as amazon workers aren't told everything they're meant to know. So sometimes anything that is liquid will get held up... because the guy doing the check was only told 'liquids' not 'milky liquids' or some random thing like this.
Or they are told no meat products.. but as they can't read english, if something looks brown and looks like it potentially has meat it will be put somewhere else for someone else to deal with, and may be just delayed for a little while.
Anyway, as for adding your address, on the amazon.com site it doesn't allow chinese characters... (you would have thought with such a big potential market..they would change their system...but no)
Anyway if you are not chinese and you add in the Romanized Chinese address you will get this message:
'Your packages will not clear customs without the recipient's valid 18 character Citizen ID Number. Please change the shipping address.'
Don't worry leave this part blank. ( you can still place the order)
Then when you get the email from a company called ECMS then you can add in your passport number, and they hand it across to customs.
When your package hits Customs, you will likely receive an email asking for more info. (If you really didn't get this email, even though you've already checked your junk email box- perhaps your stuff is being shipped by DHL, or EMS （CHina post) )
Anyway, provided your tracking number that starts with APELAX.... or APECHI.....
then it means your parcel is being handled by this ECMS company.
If you didn't get this information please follow this link:
https://www.ecmsglobal.com/oms/order_consignee
On the next page just choose the English language option found in the top right hand corner.
Note. You do NOT need to send a copy of your passport, or upload it anywhere- you simply need to type the number in.
The other information is needed for delivery to your house.
As the Chinese Customs law goes... if you do not provide this information, your package will not clear Customs & so you will simply not receive it.
(Generally if you don't provide the information within 21 working days the package is canceled & sent back to amazon.com) - So keep an eye on this
From what i understand... the 'why?' you need this , when other companies don't require it, is that this ECMS processes Customs using the 'personal declaration' instead of the business one because it saves time
info1933:
Very thorough explanation, thank you. But what about other stores in the US that ship to China? For example one of the stores ship worldwide including China and when you enter your shipping address in China it doesn't even have this field for 18-character citizen ID number. Also they ship by USPS. Any email to expect from them or? Also if there is an email thing should I use my yahoo account vs. gmail (due to its ban)? I'd appreciate any answer on that.
info1933:
Correction on my post/question: this store is shipping to China by UPS Worldwide Saver.
Let's see, We have a wealthy man with contracts for the Pentagon, owns a Washington DC newspaper, is creating a monopoly and just in case people want to break up his empire or protests. He now controls all your private information to use as a bargaining chip for anti trust negotiations. Sounds like a wonderful plan to look out for the average consumer.
ambivalentmace:
Let's use delivery drones for home security and make more money.
This is not creepy or cringy at all. Hey check the camera feed I want to see which neighbor is sleepin with my wife while I am at work. Yea, I thought it was him.
If you have a US Amazon account and a Kindle (or the Kindle app on your phone or computer) you can buy ebooks without any hassle.
