Remember though that with airmail the weight is significantly limited, with a maximum of 4 pounds. If you’re ordering vitamins I suppose it’d be fine, but if you’re ordering groceries, not so much. I’ve got an ever-growing collection of lip balm and dried porcini mushrooms because I keep needing to get airmail shipments over $20 in value, but less than 4 pounds in weight! Still, my wife is increasingly amazed by the cornucopia of lip balm flavours available in the United States.
And HenHaoChi, yes, “Bunch of interfering #)##s” is about right. It’s all total bullshit.
What a circus. It’s probably just a matter of getting documents stamped/chopped by a variety of overpaid customs people. The thing that gets me is that they don’t give two shits about my health, yet that is the premise of their ‘thorough’ inspection. We’ve had very expensive, heavy and complex machinery (the likes which no one at customs surely had no idea what they were for) shipped to Taiwan from the USA with DHL and those arrived without a hitch.
Right, the delays could cost someone their health. I had a package go missing. I don’t like to blow things out of proportion, but what they are doing could have serious consequences for someone…
Just received notice from DHL that my parcel has now cleared customs, but that due to the long weekend ahead this will not be delivered until next Tuesday. Glad I paid the 8$ DHL shipping deal and not the full price.
My package arrived. Somewhat to my surprise, it was only two days from the initial customs letter being sent to me, to arrival at my door. Thank goodness, there was once again no further testing or inquiries this time - once again, this shipment was mostly processed stuff (Clif bars, tomatillo salsa, canned tuna, and so on).
Mine only left the facility this morning, so I guess that extra few hours made the difference for getting it today rather than after the four-day weekend.
After a long dry weekend, both boxes arrived on the same truck. I could barely see the delivery guy when he stood behind them.
No extra customs fees, and it’s like Xmas down there in the kitchen.
After a long dry weekend, both boxes arrived on the same truck. I could barely see the delivery guy when he stood behind them.
No extra customs fees, and it’s like Xmas down there in the kitchen.
[quote=“Icon”]Please confirm if by DHL or normal mail.
Share your joy, anyways. :discodance:[/quote]
Both were DHL, ordered a week apart, but one somehow caught up the other due to the long weekend.
And if you were here, you could share the chocolate almonds too.
[quote=“Nuit”][quote=“Icon”]Please confirm if by DHL or normal mail.
Share your joy, anyways. :discodance:[/quote]
Both were DHL, ordered a week apart, but one somehow caught up the other due to the long weekend.
And if you were here, you could share the chocolate almonds too.[/quote]
Thanks, but I struggled to finish my white chocolate bars, so I might steal one almond or two and call it quits.
After a long dry weekend, both boxes arrived on the same truck.[/quote]
Did you have to do anything with customs at all, or did it go straight through, without any forms or emails? I haven’t had to pay anything for my two most recent DHL shipments, but three of my past three DHL shipments have faced the annoying paperwork hassle and (relatively minor) delay. I’m now assuming that every DHL shipment will face a similar extra and unnecessary paperwork step.
Yes, I’m now 4 out of 4 for DHL customs stops. The first time though, my wife translated the contents, and also made sure that I print the form off, sign it, stamp with my chop ( :roflmao: in hindsight), scan it back in. These last 2 boxes got basic on-line translation into chinese, and the worst cut-n-paste signature out of Microsoft Paint you can imagine. The process is getting a lot quicker .
My current package is the third out of five to get stopped. What’s even more annoying was that the package came in on Thursday, and the last entry was “clearance process complete”, so I figured I was fine. Then today, no package and no information from DHL. I finally wrote to customer service to ask what was going on, and got a reply that my package was actually stopped by customs and I would receive an email shortly asking for additional information. Ten minutes later I get the email asking for the translation and poa. So, why wasn’t that sent to me in the morning, or better yet, on Thursday? I think they put off contacting us when they don’t feel like going through the hassle. If I hadn’t written to CS, I wonder when I would have been contacted about my package.
At this point, I think DHL is just messing with me with this package. Besides saying “clearance processing complete” twice, after two days of sitting in limbo, it now says “Delivery arranged no details expected”, which apparently means it’s getting delivered by a third party delivery service. No idea when it will arrive.
[quote]For the next 3 days only, our DHL Express shipping is $9.38 for up to 12 kilograms (26.46 lbs.).
Take advantage of this super-low rate, and do all your shopping now! tw.iherb.com/
This offer is good through midnight (end of day), Thursday, June 25 (California Time).[/quote]
Time to get those canned navy and cannelini beans, and Frontera tomatillo salsa, and Clif bars, and whatever else hasn’t got a chance of germinating.
Tony789, your four orders: were they with DHL? And you had no customs hassles at all?
Hm. That was odd. This time, my iHerb order (DHL) came through with no hassle at all - shipped a few days ago, and arrived today, no email from customs or anything. I have no idea why it’s different this time.
Factors: the order was around 10kg, which is unusually heavy for me; and for whatever reason, the local courier/shipper - Black Cat or something? - sent me a text message when the package had been delivered. That’s never happened before. (The packaging still said DHL.)
The shipment was all processed stuff - canned beans, pasta, jarred sauces, and so on. However, that hasn’t stopped all my other packages over the past nine months or so from being held up in customs while I filled out paperwork.
Darn. If I’d known it could get through without hassle, I would have ordered the dried beans and chiles and brown basmati that I really want.
Any recent experiences? I’m interested in placing my first order with iHerb for whey protein isolate powder ($55 USD), and now I’m nervous about doing so.
You’ll be fine with protein powder - I often order the stuff and have never had it stopped. You might need to do some form filling and e-mailing, but Tiare’s last post sounds promising on NOT having to do that anymore.
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