What do you care most except for the payment when you shopping from Taobao overseas? I think it is the international shipping methods. Have you ever struggled for which shipping method to choose before you place the order? Let me introduce the shipping methods from 42agent. I believe you will feel more relaxed next time.
- EMS. Most of our customers choose it and we also highly recommend because it is fast, safe and reliable. It usually takes about 3-14 days to arrive. Some lucky USA customers even can receive their parcels only within 4 days. Unbelievable, right? At the beginning we also feel the same with you. But more and more customers have experienced the same luck, so we have to admit the speed of EMS. See the below tracking, it shipped on Aug. 7th, arrived at Sorting Center on Aug.9th and delivered on Aug. 10th. Really super fast!
To the other countries, although it is a little slower than to USA, but still fast, usually takes only 7-14 days to arrive. However, not each parcel is so fast. Sometimes, it may be delayed during transit, taking a very long time to deliver, even more than 20 days. You may ask why? Sorry, we also don’t know and are not able to control it. We used to try to ask the post company, but they also can’t give an exact answer. They have no idea what happened on the destination post. For example, you can see the following parcel was delayed and takes 29 days to arrive. It was shipped on July 17st, arrived at Sorting Center on Agu. 26th, however was released from customs and delivered on Aug.15th. We have no idea what happened during July 26th to Aug. 15th.
EMS fee is based on each 500g, and fees for the first 500g is much higher than each extra 500g. As a result, if your parcel is less than 500g, EMS fee will be higher accordingly and airmail will be better choice for such small parcels.
- Singapore Airmail. Some customers buy small items and they are not hurry to receive the items, then Airmail will be their best choice. Because it is the cheapest shipping. But the delivering time is much longer which usually takes about 15-40 days. And there is weight limit of 2KG for each parcel. For parcels less than 1KG, we will suggest Airmail if you are not in a hurry.
- DHL. It is more expensive than EMS usually, but faster and more stable. We cooperated with 2 DHL agents, one is Bejing DHL and the other one is HongKong DHL. The difference is Beijing DHL will ships from Beijing directly, usually 1-3 days faster than HongKong DHL, but it is also much more expensive. HongKong DHL will ship the parcel from Beijing to HongKong first, then arrange to Airplane, so has about 3 days delay in China.
DHL has volumetric weight, which means if the volumetric weight is bigger than real weight, DHL will charge you based the heavier one. For example, you have a parcel which actually weighs 6kg but the volumetric is 9.5kg, DHL will charge fee based 9.5kg. Here is the volumetric weight calculation formula: Length * Width * Height / 5000.
- SAL. You can try to read this shipping method as: Sea, Air, and Lands, then it’s easy to understand. Slow but economic. You can consider this shipping method if your items are heavy and you don’t mind waiting. The official website says it takes about 1-3 months to arrive. But life is full of miracles, our customers usually receive their parcels in about 15-30 days with this shipping method. Below is one of our Canada customer received his parcel with SAL only in 13 days.
The disadvantage is SAL has little tracking information. So you need to wait patiently even if you find there is no update for 10-20 days. - Chinese Air. If you can’t use Singapore Airmail because of the weight is more than 2kg, and you feel EMS is a little expensive, then you can choose Chinese Air. The advantage is cheap, disadvantage is unstable. Sometimes fast, sometimes very slow. It is normal if your parcel takes about 2 months to arrive with this shipping method.
- Aramex. It is fast and cheaper than EMS and DHL to middle east countries. Delivery time is 3-7 days usually. This shipping method also has volumetric weight, and calculation formula: Length * Width * Height / 5000.
- Shunfeng. It is our new shipping method. There are few customers choose this shipping method till now as it is new. But I think you can have a try. According to the post company, it is almost the same fast with EMS. The shipping fee to most countries is also a little cheaper than EMS.
Except the shipping time, you must want to know about the shipping fee. Right? You can pre-calculate here to compare fees for different shipping methods: https://www.42agent.com/services/calc.php. Some people are confused for this words “When parcels weigh more than 5KG, 45% discount off standard EMS rates will be applied to all countries.” Let me make an example: weight 6000g, ship to USA, how much is EMS fee? When you calculate from EMS official website, you will find the standard EMS fee is 1065 CNY. However, TaobaoRing gives 45% discount off, so you only need to pay 1065*(1-0.45)= 585.75 CNY.
Do you have an idea now which shipping methods to choose when buy from Taobao which is the China Ebay? If still have any confusing, please feel free to email us at service@42agent.com. Hope you have a wonderful shopping experience with us!