My AliExpress shipping times - an analysis

Projects
1

In the last 18 months I’ve made 150 AliExpress orders. To keep track of all these orders I have a “system” consisting of a spreadsheet, screenshots of the orders, tracking numbers, screenshots of the corresponding lines on my credit card statement, etc. For about a year I’ve been keeping track of the number of days elapsed from ordering, to arrival.

A frequent VHS topic has been shipping times from China, so I thought I’d share some of my data.

Q4 2016 - Shipping “China Post Registered Air”

Something happened during this time. It was particularly slow for anything ordered in October, and then it got slightly better, but these shipping times were insane. I heard it was that Hanjin went bankrupt or that parcels were under more scrutiny for fentanyl or because our tiny packets are overwhelming the postal system and losing them tons of money.

Anyway, here are the shipping times for my 28 orders during Q4 2016. I’ve only included China Post Registered Air, and excluded any that were other shipping methods.

Screen Shot 2017-06-24 at 9.29.15 PM.png1358×770 19.8 KB

Jan-Jun 2017 - Shipping ePacket

I found the magic combination of speed, cost, and convenience:

  • Insist on ePacket shipping. Sometimes it costs a couple more dollars on AliExpress, but it’s worth it.
  • Get yourself a Canada Post FlexDelivery address. This way you don’t bother a mailman to ring your doorbell each day when you’re not home. Instead you get an email alert when your parcel is available at your nearest postal outlet. If you move, you can retarget your FlexDelivery address to a different outlet.
  • It’s usually pretty darn fast. Here are my 39 ePacket orders in this period. I’ve excluded any orders that went by other shipping methods.

Screen Shot 2017-06-24 at 9.29.21 PM.png1356×764 19 KB

  • 28% delivered within 1 week
  • 72% delivered within 2 weeks
  • 82% delivered within 3 weeks
  • 90% delivered within 4 weeks

Notes: my dates are from the time I clicked “order” to the time it arrived. Sometimes it takes a few days for the seller to even ship the thing, and that’s unfortunately mixed into my data. The above is from many different sellers, so I don’t think it’s biased in that regard.

6 Likes
2

My experiences with a similar number of orders has been the same…
Using ePacket for shipping is the key and I now pretty much only order from a vendor that offers it…
This can take some shopping around but I can usually find one that does…
It adds a bit to the cost but typically not that much and it includes tracking…

2 Likes
3

Are there any issues with the flex address being different from the address associated with your credit card?

4

None at all. Keep in mind that I really only use it for AliExpress, and policies probably differ between e-commerce sites. I think I’ve also used it once for DirtyPCBs and once for Amazon, and don’t remember any problems with them either.

5

I think he means if the flex account itself is paid with credit card. I was under the impression it was free, but I haven’t completed my registration yet, so can’t be sure …

6

The flex is free - I signed up this morning. I did mean that often vendors will check the shipping address vs the address your CC statement is mailed to and only ship to the address on your CC statement.

7

Actually I am curious if the theory that screening packages for Fentanyl is delaying our mail is an Urban Myth or it is real?

The issue with Mail delivery in Canada seem to be growing. Here is very interesting link I found:https://forums.redflagdeals.com/mail-processing-canada-customs-slow-711375/85/.

I think one guy has a point by suggesting that we all should start writing about this issue to our Parliament Representatives (individually). I am not sure how to convince TV and Newspaper outlets to give it a bigger spin?

8

To be clear, I’m more than satisfied with my shipping, save for October 2016 which seems to have been an anomaly. I consistently pay less than $3 to ship up to 3lbs from China, all in. It usually gets here within a week or two. Amazing!

Sometimes I pay for FedEx or DHL. That gets things here within a week, maybe two. But it costs $30 - $40 extra which is often more than I paid for the goods themselves. I MUCH prefer the cheaper (albeit slightly less reliable) option with ePacket via Canada Post. Its usually quite fast, more convenient than FedEx/DHL, and so so cheap. Overall I am very satisfied with their service. YMMV.

9

“At the 2016 Universal Postal Congress, Universal Postal Union member
countries agreed that, beginning in 2018, bulky letters and small parcels
will be priced differently from other letter-post formats to better reflect
the cost of processing and delivering such items from all countries.[459]
http://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/OGGO/Reports/RP8673298/#_ftn459
In addition, according to information Canada Post provided to the
Committee, the Universal Postal Union will be phasing in higher levels of
compensation for registered mail items that many countries use for
international e-commerce items, including China, starting in 2018.”

There appears to be a implicit work to rule happening. Both the Postal
service and Postal Union want to be paid more for handling bulky letters
and small parcels.

The current problems seems to be traced back to this.

A few more notes: The most significant point is since local centres are no longer paid for sorting. They are mostly likely very resistant to perform unpaid labour sorting they feel should have been done by the region sorting centres which are paid to do it.

"Mail processing operations

As part of the postal transformation, local mail sorting was replaced with a centralized, regional model. Mail is sometimes shipped long distances to be sorted before being delivered, which has led to delayed mail delivery"

“As part of the postal transformation, local mail sorting was replaced with a centralized, regional model. Mail is sometimes shipped long distances to be sorted before being delivered, which has led to delayed mail delivery, especially over the winter.”

“Canada Post should have a coherent policy on customs duties and
taxes for imported parcels.”

1 Like
10

Well, what’s new… In the '70s (that’s 1970’s, for you young whippersnappers…), I lived in Rimouski, 600kms from Montreal. If I sent a letter accross town, it would get to the (large) central post office, where it would be packaged and sent to Montreal for sorting, and then sent back to Rimouski, and then delivered. Time from dropping in the mailbox to being delivered (at the door, mind you): anywhere from 3 to 7 working days. For a letter going accross a 20,000 inhabitant town… I learned to walk and drop them off for free, same day. And yes, no joke, sometimes there WAS 3 feet of snow, both ways, LOL!

I don’t know what the time was to get something from China, in those days nobody ordered anything from so far away, instead WE sent them money through charity because that country was so dirt poor. Or so the local catholic priests were telling us. Eh! Wait a minute!?.. Like Japan, they made good use, as they should, of external help, be it monetary or knowledge investments. I do not understand why they would still be considered a “third world country”, as another poster was quoting.

The best international delivery time I get is from Ukraine and other nearby countries, their stuff gets at my door faster than anything shipped from Montreal. About 10 days. Faster than stuff from Texas too.

This said, a package from Holland has yet to arrive, after over a month and a half. I am writing this one off.

All in all, for the devices we are getting from the rest of the planet, I do not think we can seriously complain about delivery time. Once Humanity is mining the Asteroid Belt, and you absolutely have to get that 100 kilos of H3 laced platinum foam (I don’t think that really exist…) then maybe.

11

Yeah apparently nothing’s new. But now you gotta wonder why delivery.pickup and routing (and then maybe delivery same day) cant be done on the postman’s smartphone (if the envelope is printed with a Canada Post approved machine-readable font - or stencil for those without printers).

12

Funny, the package from Holland finally arrived, after two months. In good condition (i.e., was not stuck, and mangled by, the sorting machinery…) and apparently not opened for inspection. Go figure.

13

According to a friend that works in the postal service right now the delay is a simple backlog of parcels from China. This is apparently mainly due to lack of correct addressing and small package size. In both cases this requires more labour intensive manual processing.

Apparently the Richmond sorting facility has a crap load of container trailers all waiting to be manually processed…

14

And since new hires are getting paid less than “old” hands…

15

I just got two orders from Aliexpress at lightening speed. Both were replacement parts for my laptop.

I needed the parts faster than my usual 30days so I paid a little extra (epacket) - which was very inexpensive. Both orders arrived in 9 days. I’ll definitely do that again.

1 Like
16

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.