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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: How reliable is the China Post shipping service (or others) ?
I want to ship some boxes back to the US (mostly clothes); 20 kg. How reliable is China Post's shipping service for something like this? Is there a cheaper, better service out there?
I can only give you my experience, can not vouch for any company's reliability because all have problems like missing items, etc.
For 15 years I have ,mailed boxes ( 2 to 3 per year) first from USA to China, using USPS, then from China to USA using China Postal Services, surface mail rate. It does take from 2 to 3 months to arrive, but have not lost one package yet, nor any items missing from a box.
But I do follow some simple rules. When mailing from China to USA, label with address is in English, but I do write USA and also United States of America in Chinese characters too, and if mailing to China, I write name and address in Mandarin, and China in English/. I do not include any prohibited items inside the box, and that includes DVD's. In China is very difficult, but in America I insist on metered tape, not stamps, and I do list on customs declaration everything inside the box.
There are two more things I normally do, and they are : I do ask foir the register service, it only adds less than 15 yuan to the cost, and I do insure it (again, very cheap). Somehow, that helps to assure me that it will be delivered at a very small extra cost.
I have not found any service cheaper than China Post yet, their surface mail rate to USA is very cheap.
FaithfulR:
Thanks for the tips. I sent a package home before the holiday. We'll see if it makes it...
I have used China Mail Service on a number of occasions and so far not had any problems. Ironically, when I use EMS to mail things abroad, somehow the company managers to get them to some far flung foreign destination quicker than some domestic locations. I could never work that one out.
China Post did badly beat up a couple of boxes I had sent, and some things went missing. The stuff was well packed in good quality boxes, they looked like they had been kicked repeatedly every day during their months of travel. (this was only from Singapore to China)
If you are shipping something breakable, see what DHL or the likes will cost. It will be a lot more expensive, but compared the price to having some of your stuff broken.
If you are sending clothes or other things that can handle a beating, then China Post is the way to go.
The times I have sent stuff with China Post, they have been pretty strict in going through the contents. I wanted to send some hongbao and as I know cash is not allowed, I had a hongbao envelope with just a card, and then the real thing neatly hidden away in a book. The post office employee found the cash and gave them back to me before taping up the box.
Chinapost is good in that it almost always gets to the destination, but remember if you don't put the address in Hanzi AND English it will be VERY slow as it will sit in the sorting office for weeks sometimes waiting for someone to translate the address.
This is even more important when sending stuff to China.
e.g. I needed a friend to send a package, he sent it to my address using English words (pretty obvious as he was in England); it took 3 months to get here, but got here intact. Next time I emailed him our address in Chinese and got him to print if off and put it next to the English language address; it got here in 10 days, again intact.
i used China post several times.shipping stuff to USA.Successfully,take about 20 days.I am lucky