International shipping

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
OKLAHOMAN

OKLAHOMAN

Member
Joined
May 17, 2006
Messages
10,228
Location
Costa Rica
A question for you that ship internationally. I ship weekly to countries not in the North America.. We have had good luck with 99.9% of all shipments being delivered but do have one or two countries that consistently either never deliver or deliver over 60 days after product was shipped.South Africa is the worst and I have had on occasion Australia no lose the package but deliver it almost 10 weeks after it arrived there. Anyone else have any countries that you just about don't want to ship to?
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
I had a client in S Africa that said the post office was on strike and it would be after January before they could get anything if then.
 
I shipped to India once. It was my first sale through my Web site that wasn't a friend. Scared the heck out of me. Took 2-3 months I think. He kept emailing me. I finally just refunded him. The pen showed up the next day. He didn't even pull the money out of PayPal. Refused payment. Scary but all good in the end. Don't think I'll be doing that again.
Some countries are so scared of what's coming in.
 
I have had no troubles with Australia at all or England. For anyone is the eastern US shipping to Canada make sure you tape all seems in the box / envelope as things can "go missing" or possibly "damaged in transit" when they pass through the sorting plant in Mississauga, Ontario.

Bruce
 
Roy,
I spent 30 years doing international shipping... I've shipped about everything you can imagine at one time or another to at least half the countries in the world... and I've had good and bad luck with most of them... South Africa is an interesting country to ship to... I had an oil field explosive shipment into So. Africa... got all my permits and such, shipped the explosives without a hitch.... but by U.S. regulations, the Detonator cord for the explosives had to be shipped separately... I had about 5,000 lbs of explosives on the ground in South Africa... they would not give me permits to ship the det cord... without the det cord, the explosives were useless... I spent 30 days and I don't know how many phone calls to my agent, to the ministries of every department I could think of to get my cord into So. Africa.... finally client said just ship it to Namibia.. we'll smuggle it in.

Brazil is another interesting country to ship to... I had a piece that was shipped from my warehouse in Houston to Rio.... the warehouse packed the wrong freight in the box or else mis-marked the box... once cleared into Brazilian customs, I could not retrieve the freight, they did not have facilities to change the paperwork to re-export the box....
I also lost an industrial paper cutter in Sao Paulo when I was working for a company in Tucson ... it was in a slatted crate that was 6' x 6' x 6', you could see the machine through the slats, it was shipped on a direct non-stop flight out of Miami to Sao Paulo on Varig Airlines, confirmed on board out of Miami and never cleared customs... I searched for that one for a month...finally had to file a freight claim... it was still pending when I left the company to go back to Houston.
 
Welcome to the 7th world - South Africa.
The Post Office has been on strike for over 3 months. All the major executives have been fired. The new executive says it will take another 3 months before it is back to normal but the workers say they will go on strike again in Jan.
There is very little internal post and the courier companies must be laughing as that is the only way to get good across the country. Cost more but it gets done - in 1/3 of the time as well.
I have in the past 10 years or so bought a lot of goods from the USA and UK and never had a lost parcel. Now I wouldn't chance using the postal system.
The government and labour are making this country worse every day.
Phil
 
Now I understand what the h*** happened to the order I shipped on August 25th. I only wonder why the recipient waited until yesterday to tell me he hadn't received it and wanted me to ship another without telling me NOT to ship it via the postal service. In trying to please him I shipped another order yesterday via postal service....crap :mad:

Phil Hansen said:
Welcome to the 7th world - South Africa.
The Post Office has been on strike for over 3 months. All the major executives have been fired. The new executive says it will take another 3 months before it is back to normal but the workers say they will go on strike again in Jan.
There is very little internal post and the courier companies must be laughing as that is the only way to get good across the country. Cost more but it gets done - in 1/3 of the time as well.
I have in the past 10 years or so bought a lot of goods from the USA and UK and never had a lost parcel. Now I wouldn't chance using the postal system.
The government and labour are making this country worse every day.
Phil
Click to expand...
 
Let me make something clear that the customer's package that was lost did not ask for replacement, but I took it upon myself to replace it, only not knowing that the postal service was on strike I again sent it via post office, in my frustration I did imply he had asked me to send a replacement.
 
Pity you were not aware of the problems. The first package is most probably sitting in the huge pile of unsorted stuff and he might get it in 6 months time or it has been pilfered or trashed.
They have trashed some of the offices and burnt delivery vehicles
Phil
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom