Postage inconsistencies

[rhj959]

I'm based in the UK. I sold four Roman coins on ebay to a customer in Italy which took 26 days to arrive, using Royal Mail/USPS. Pretty poor service. Last Sunday I posted two Roman coins to another ebay customer in Toronto, Canada. This time using Fedex and another local courier service to get it to the Fedex hub near London. It was delivered on Wednesday, taking under four days to arrive. Well done Fedex! 

[Mucius Scaevola]

That's pretty normal. There is a difference between the normal postal services and companies that get payed more for delivering faster. With the custom process etc. 

But I don't like FedEx anymore because of huge problems with customs fees and their bills.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Mucius Scaevola

[John Conduitt]

I've found Royal Mail to be extremely quick (I also live in the UK). The regular Canadian postal system is extremely quick too. If I buy coins from Canada, they go normal post and always arrive in 3-5 days. Occasionally, even quicker. I've found couriers take longer and always end up charging extra fees higher than Royal Mail/Canadian mail charged to do the whole job.

I don't know about delivery to Italy, but sometimes customs holds things up. Or in my case, the eBay GSP, which seems to add weeks to a delivery time. French post is good - often next day (combined with Royal Mail), while a few other European systems take (a lot) longer. Surprisingly, German post doesn't seem to be very quick. The US is extremely variable, and my mail gets chewed up by their machinery alarmingly regularly.

Edited August 11, 2022 by John Conduitt

[maridvnvm]

The service you get from Royal Mail varies depending on the service used. I use International Tracked and Signed which gets to most countries around in 3 to 5 days.

Postage to Italy is a bit strange and there is a large delay at Italian customs which is outside the control of the Royal Mail. This is often down to the import restrictions to Italy. It is illegal to ship ancients to Italy. Many many people do not ship to Italy due to the extensive delays and regular disappearing packages. Packages will often disappear in the Italian customs system.

 

[ambr0zie]

My experience with FedEx in the last months was so bad that I simply decided to stop using them. I think I am a reasonable man and first issue was bad luck. Second, well, it happens. But when it happens 5 times in a row for me it's clear this is not a service I want to pay for.

All the bad experiences were with FedEx Economy. Price for the shipping - 15 EUR + 1% of the total invoice value.

I had very good experience with:

- FedEx Priority - 18 EUR + 1% of the value (so a very negligible extra cost for a huge difference in quality - 3 days vs 2 weeks minimum)

- DHL Express - 18.5 EUR

- Czech Post (that was a surprise) - 10 EUR

- German post - the same price, but last time I used them was 1 year and a half ago.

 

I am currently waiting for a Dutch post shipment. It should arrive tomorrow, or, most likely, in the first part of the next week.

[KenDorney]

Shipping services are all over the board in regards to value, price and time.  Many Europeans like to use Fedex and DHL as they are very cheap there while being cost prohibitive in the US.  Incoming to the US both named services take a lot of time, are often held in customs and add on additional 'customs fees' (when none exist).  I would prefer to go back to individual countries registered mail as they dont add fees and are typically about the same time frame.

[UkrainiiVityaz]

3 hours ago, KenDorney said:

Shipping services are all over the board in regards to value, price and time.  Many Europeans like to use Fedex and DHL as they are very cheap there while being cost prohibitive in the US.  Incoming to the US both named services take a lot of time, are often held in customs and add on additional 'customs fees' (when none exist).  I would prefer to go back to individual countries registered mail as they dont add fees and are typically about the same time frame.

The only issue with registered mail is that you cannot get "registered" mail from the UK to the USA - only "recorded" which is basically useless.  I have a P.O. box to get numismatic related mail and recorded is just thrown into the box - no signature or anything.  

[Qcumbor]

My last experience with FedEx (Switzerland to France) was a few days ago with a bill arriving after the parcel, asking for 156 more euros, i.e. almost 6% added to the initial invoice, which already included the shipping cost ....

 

Q

[Kaleun96]

16 minutes ago, Qcumbor said:

My last experience with FedEx (Switzerland to France) was a few days ago with a bill arriving after the parcel, asking for 156 more euros, i.e. almost 6% added to the initial invoice, which already included the shipping cost ....

 

Q

Don't you pay VAT on imports from outside the EU in France? I believe the VAT on ancient coins in Belgium is 6% so it sounds like a VAT import fee. FedEx and DHL will always charge you this since they do the import process themselves, whereas if it is sent via registered mail it may slip past without being pinged for the VAT import fee.

The fee is also calculated based on the item value + shipping cost.