Originally Posted by
dminor
I presume Australian Post runs much like Canada Post? - - sort of "it gets there when it gets there"? I marvel at how post in the 'colonies' still seems to run on the lah-dee-dah European standards of performance.
I ship a lot of stuff out of Canada all over the world with my little Ebay experiment. This is my experience:
- shipping within Canada is lightening fast. A package will take at most 4 days to cross the continent. Stuff to Ontario takes 2 days. Stuff within Quebec arrives the day after.
- shipping to the US is a crap shoot. I have had packages shipped that have arrived as quickly as 4 days or take as long as 3 weeks. I even have extreme cases like that with packages to California, which is fairly far from me. What I've heard is that Canada Post is very quick to get the stuff out of the country so I'm guessing there is a huge variable within the US what with the different hubs and stuff.
- shipping to Europe can be quick but their customs offices can and will sit on packages if they feel like it. By fairly quick I mean that packages will arrive in about 7-10 days but if they have a-hole customs offices they will hold onto a package for weeks. I once shipped a package to Turkey that clearly showed that it arrived in the country in a reasonable time but that it was then held in customs for over 2 weeks.
- I get a lot of Australian customers and there is something that just works between Canada Post and Australia Post because packages consistently arrive in about a week. Given the distance from Canada to Australia I am impressed especially after comparing with shipments that take on average longer to places like Florida and Colorado.