Mortuus: I do not think the problem has to do with packaging, but rather with the restrictions of air transport and the availability of stock from warehouses that can carry out the shipment.
At least for the U S, battery shipping changes weekly if not more often. A few months ago they wouldn’t ship 18650’s to me in California at all, then three or four weeks ago I ordered 4 30Q’s in the plastic box and they were shipped unregistered for free. I just checked, and it now says they can only ship to me for $2.50 “via air parcel register”.
Maybe if you check back in a couple of days it will say something different?
I am in Australia, and I was able to order 4 30Q from BG on 19/09, but a week later, all batteries on the BG (and GB for that matter) are no longer available to be ordered for shipping to Australia.
Same, i never got to order any at all for myself yet, (except for a set i was supposed to blow up doing destructive tests on, and if i do that i don’t have any cells for the Q8.
I am discovering most other over-seas sellers are now cutting off selling Lithium Ion cells to foreign countries. many of them i checked with have recently stopped selling to Canada due to the increasing shipping restrictions… It looks like by next year none of us will be able to get any good quality cells from overseas, and have to buy local at ridiculous prices.
It actually surprise me to see it can last until now. Fasttech was having issue shipping batteries oversea in 2013 i think.
Let’s hope Banggood and Gearbest can handle this battery shipping restriction issue.
UPS is the worst, most expensive, rip-off shipper i have ever had to deal with… They double charge, have hidden fees on top of fees, loose & destroy packages worse than basic mail, & the list goes on. I woudl never deal with them again. By the time all their fees, brokerage, their high shipping rates are all paid off it woudl cost $60.00 + dollars to order just four 18650 cells through them.