Sending parcels to Japan

[mkengel]

I am looking for the cost of sending parcels from China to Japan (I am not living in China - therefore I have to ask)

a) 5 kg

B) 10 kg

c) 20 kg

d) is there a limit for 1 parcel

a-c) air mail or surface mail

The contents will be books only.

Appreciate very much if someone could stop at a post office and ask.

Thank you

Michael

[davidj]

If you haven't bought the books yet, you should look at sites like joyo.com (there is at least one other similar site). They will both sell you books at a discount and ship them internationally with the advantage of getting discount (B2B) rates from their shippers.

When I used them, joyo accepted international plastic. The one caveat was, at least at that time, if a back order fails, they keep the RMB on account, for use against future purchases.

Joyo is the Chinese franchise of Amazon, and also answer to amazon.cn.

[mkengel]

Thanks David.

Unfortunately, this domain is forwarded to amazon.cn (at least if you are outside of China).

Amazon now wants 60 RMB per book to send it by ship to Japan and 70 per airmail.

[roddy]

Are you having someone you know buy the books and take them to the post office, or do you just want somewhere to order books from. The shipping costs listed here (section 6) might give you an idea of costs.

Amazon.cn and joyo are the same thing. However they don't seem to be taking international cards at the moment.

[mkengel]

Roddy wrote>>

Are you having someone you know buy the books and take them to the post office, or do you just want somewhere to order books from.

However they don't seem to be taking international cards at the moment.

--------

Thanks Roddy.

I would prefer to buy by myself - if the sending fee is not 60 RMB for a 30 RMB book (amazon). I have a list of 20 books, so it is outrageous/greedy. (same is said about Amazon Japan)

But I know some people in Shanghai and Qingdao, I will have to ask them to buy for me.

For that reason, I would like to know in advance how much it will be.

Michael

[davidj]

Books are heavy (I tried a RMB 20 Chinese novel and it came to 575 grams, without packaging) and international postage is expensive. Whilst the mainland component of the cost from China may be less than for the UK to the US, I suspect such prices are still dominated by the international transfer costs and therefore the UK to US price may be valid.

Before tax, sending by letter post (small packet) would cost, at least, GBP 3.55, for one book, and assuming a total shipment weight of 12kg (which may be low), the total post office parcel (Parcelforce) rate would be GBP 81.19, for the cheapest, uninsured, option.

My guess would be that Amazon's and the the other supplier's rates do not have a big markup and that the markup is on the trade price, so an individual may have to pay more.

I could be surprised, but, whilst my Chinese is probably enough to decode the post office tariff, I'm not sure it is good enough to find it in the first place.

Incidentally, Joyo were Amazon when I first used them, but I think they subsequently shifted their branding towards Amazon and then shifted it back.

Their international orders help page still indicates that they accept Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and JCB, but I haven't checked elsewhere, or tried an order. If they only accept bank transfers, it's going to be cheaper to buy locally for orders below about GBP 30, and I won't feel comfortable below about GBP 200.

Incidentally, I wasn't clear about the significance of the column headed "图书套装 (按套装中每两件收费）".

[davidj]

Walk-in rates for letter post are considerably higher than Amazon, based on typical book weights, e.g. 352 RMB (2003 price) for the 2kg maximum, which will only cover three or four books.

The China Post web site may have the rates, but I was only able to find mainland and greater China rates.

I've also found their express international rates, which seem to be 180 for the first 500 grams, for goods, and 40 for each subsequent 500 grams. That looks like it might be better than Amazon for average novels with minimal packaging, if you send enough at once. I think the 352 may have been aimed at US tourists.

Edited August 25, 2008 at 03:02 PM by davidj
Add express international rates.

[roddy]

I just checked on payment, as people have reported problems previously. The option to pay by international credit card could be missed, as it's under a drop down menu marked 银行卡, which I took to mean a Chinese bank card rather than credit card. But at the bottom of that list you've got Visa, Mastercard, JCB and Amex. Choosing Mastercard, I was then told that the books I'd chosen (couple of random ones) couldn't be sent abroad. Swapped them for two others and that was ok, got redirected to the Payease ( https://pay.beijing.com.cn ) site for payment - one of the main third party payment providers in China, if you're going to trust anyone with your credit card number it might as well be them. I stopped at that point, as I didn't actually want the books. Looks like Payease handle all of their foreign card payments.

"图书套装 (按套装中每两件收费）".

As I understand it, box sets are charged the below fee per every two books - ie if the fee is RMB60 and you order a boxed set of six books, you pay RMB180.

Not sure about costs to Japan, but here Heifeng sent 16kg of books for just over RMB400 - perhaps useful as a ballpark figure.

[pandaxiongmao]

I sent 20kg boxes of books to Korea from China last year, the cost per 20kg box was between 100 and 200RMB sent by surface mail. Japan might be a bit more expensive since it is a little further, but shouldn't be by much. It might be best to have a Chinese person go with you or your friend to the post office, since you can get charged different rates depending on how the items get sent.

I had to repack my books into a different box rather than the one I brought in - if I had used my original box, it would have cost more.

[mkengel]

So, I ordered the books via a friend in Qingdao.

I will report back with the calculation after I receive them. It might be even more expensive than Amazon but we'll see. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't state the weight of each book, so there is no way to calculate.

In my list, there are some books which weigh 2 kg each and others which are less than 300g per book.

Thanks for all your answers.

Michael