Hi, i want to talk about this subject, and see what users have to say about it.
Lets say some store is selling 4x 18650 for 30$ free shipping, or very low cost - 1/2$?
Would you pay more for faster shipping, knowing that then, the price will be higher, and potentially cheap and affordable deal can become expensive (somewhat?)
For me, i would pay up to 5$ + when dealing with Asian based stores, for faster shipping. ~ 2 weeks, instead of ~ 25/30 days……(4 weeks)
What do you guys think? i think there should be this option to select for faster shipping, which cost a bit more on big stores like Banggood, Gearbest, DX, Fasttech and so on.
I think you will find you can do that now, plenty of places offer services to deliver stuff from China, the problem is the price just as it is the same issue of delivery from the US. A number of the usual Chinese sellers have postage options that can be $20-40 for a couple of batteries.
The next issue will be the process by which transactions are handled. The chances are your expensive post will travel along with the slow boat stuff. Much like tracking numbers that dont work, even when you pay extra for said number. No business offers the type of delivery we expect, for next to nix, or even $5. Chinese post is subsidised to be cheap, and it is what it is.
I have my doubts that orders from FT, banggood etc will arrive much faster with more expensive shipping.
If I wanted to get a package faster than the usual 25-35 days I would just buy locally or from RMM or Illumn.
After all if you pay extra for faster shipping then you may as well spend that little bit more
and order from a more reputable source such as Illumn and RMM.
+1.
I have tried paying extra for faster shipping for 3 of my previous online orders from our chinese online seller friends. Fastest I experienced was 25 days and the longest was 29 days. My regular orders with free shipping on the average arrived 32 days. Not really much of a difference IMHO. The extra $5 + postal/customs fees I will just add to cover the addtl cost of purchasing the same item(s) locally.
I s’pose. My principle is that when I order from FT I want to save the most amount of $$$. Therefore I’ve never ordered with faster shipping since I can simply be patient and wait a month and know that I’ve saved some money. To some people they may consider the faster shipping options worth it but at the moment I can’t see much benefit.
1. PM Richard with what you want, & where you want it sent to.
2. Richard replies with a quote. If you are happy with the quote, you ask him to send you a PayPal invoice.
3. You pay, & get the stuff in a week or so. (much better packaged than anyone else, I might add…)
Depending on how quickly I want the item I will pay up to $15 extra for shipping if it’s a reasonable size order. But I often find the faster shipping options are ridiculously expensive. E.g. I bought a 32mm MCPCB recently. The item cost me $18 with free shipping and I enquired about a faster option and the only one they gave me was going to cost $19.20 just for the shipping! For something which will fit in the smallest envelope available! I thought there surely must be something in between but with the time wasted sending emails back and forth it wasn’t worth asking again.
I know it’s not impossible to get DHL express for under $10.
This Alieexpress dealer has TOLL 3-6day for $6.50 extra. E-EMS $10 5-10 days.
So somehow they’ve managed to negotiate an agreement and can afford to make a profit off their sales still. If they can do it then I would think others can also.
So far most of my China orders have taken 2 weeks or less with the exception of a knife order last year during the big battery shipment mess or shipments within the Christmas shipping period. Someone in the HKPO could not tell what was in the package and returned it to the seller after a ridiculous delay. Seller resent it and I finally received it.
A large part of the delay in shipping seems to be sellers who take days to get items actually shipped based on time from order placement to actual acceptance by China Post based on the tracking number showing anything. Not sure any reasonable priced option would speed things up much. Right now I have a Supbeam X40 from a group buy coming. Paid for on the 25th of July. Received shipping info including a tracking number on the 31st. As of this morning, the 4th of Aug it still is not actually in the China Post system per USPS tracking. This is a slow one so far with no shipping options mentioned as offered in the group buy. Normally once tracking info is available I am receiving items within a week.
Commercial US buyers receiving goods from China almost universally use UPS or Fedex international freight shipping but pay for it including customs fees and other expenses for large orders including a “Hazardous Material” charge when they ship Lithium Ion batteries. Normally very fast delivery though. One reason though that they have to charge more than China sellers.
