Japan Post Tracking: 5 Essentials for Oversea Beginners

Japan Post Tracking Essentials

Japan Post (日本郵政公社 ) was a government-owned corporation in Japan that existed from 2003 to 2007, offering postal and package delivery services, banking services, and life insurance. 

1. Japan Post Code Rules

Post code may have certain rules that represents certain places. Knowing that may save your time.

All Japanese addresses have a seven-digit post code which is traditionally written at the beginning of the address, followed by the prefecture （ken 県), city （shi 市), ward (ku　区) and then the sub-areas (cho 町 and chome　丁目) and the name of the building if it has one and finally the name of the person - traditionally surname first.

 

2. (International) Delivery Time

International shipping often takes much longer time than domestic one and there are more chances for problems due to the distance. This time table below shows how long it takes to different countries shipped by Japan Post which may help you to tell when you should start worrying about your parcel and need to get some help.

International mail days list・Tokyo International Post Office

Area	Country/Area name		Average number of days
			Air parcels	SAL parcels
Asia	India		8	About 2 weeks
	Indonesia		8	About 3 weeks
	Vietnam		10	no handling
	Rep. of Korea	Seoul	5	no handling
	Singapore		4	About 2 weeks
	Sri Lanka		8	About 3 weeks
	Thailand		7	About 3 weeks
	Taiwan		6	no handling
	China	Shanghai	7	About 2 weeks
		Beijing	7	About 2 weeks
		Hong Kong	6	About 2 weeks
	Pakistan		8	About 2 weeks
	Bangladesh		11	About 3 weeks
	Philippines		10	2 to 3 weeks
	Malaysia		7	About 2 weeks
Oceania	Australia		7	About 2 weeks
	New Zealand		6	About 2 weeks
North America	Canada	Vancouver	6	About 2 weeks
		Montreal	7
	United States of America	San Francisco	8	About 2 weeks
		Chicago	5
		New York	7
		Los Angels	6
	Mexico		-	2 to 3 weeks
Middle East	United Arab Emirates		-	2 to 3 weeks
	Iran		11	no handling
	Saudi Arabia		12	2 to 3 weeks
	Turkey		13	2 to 3 weeks
Europe	Italy		8	2 to 3 weeks
	United Kingdom		6	2 to 3 weeks
	Austria		5	About 2 weeks
	Netherlands		6	About 2 weeks
	Switzerland		6	About 2 weeks
	Sweden		5	About 2 weeks
	Spain		9	2 to 3 weeks
	Denmark		4	About 2 weeks
	Germany		5	About 2 weeks
	Hungary		7	About 2 weeks
	Finland		5	2 to 3 weeks
	France		8	About 2 weeks
	Belgium		6	About 2 weeks
	Poland		8	About 2 weeks
	Russian Federation		9	About 2 weeks
Africa	Egypt		9	About 2 weeks
	Ghana		9	no handling
South America	Argentina		7	2 to 3 weeks
	Brazil		9	About 3 weeks
	Peru		6	2 to 3 weeks

 

3.  Hours

If you are in Japan or want to send something there via Japan Post, it’s much more convenient to know their working hours.

Normal Japanese post offices are usually open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm for mail and Monday-Friday 9am-4pm for other services such as insurance, banking, postal orders and bill payments. Local post offices are closed at weekends and national holidays.

However, each city's central post office (中央郵便局), usually located near the main railway station will have a 24/7 counter. Typically central post offices are open Monday-Friday 9am-7pm, Saturday 9am-5pm and Sunday 9am-12.30pm. Outside those hours an all-night window operates until the post office reopens fully the next day.

District post offices, one per ward (ku), also maintain an after-hours window for nighttime pick-up and posting. Typical hours are Monday-Friday 9am-7pm, Saturday 9am-3pm.

4. International Parcel Post

NORMAL SHIPPING TYPES:

There are three shipping types: Airmail, Surface mail and Economy Air (SAL).

A discount that offers a 10% to 20% available depending on the number of articles posted.

The maximum weight limit is 30 kg. (Weight limits vary by country.)

Procedures are easy and simple. Fill out the special parcel label and paste it on the package.

You can insure your parcels against loss or damage. (The amount of insurance varies by country.)

 

OTHER CHOICES:

International ePacket 

Small items under 2kg can be sent for a cheaper price comparing to EMS (International Express Mail) or to registered small packets.。

The items are sent by airmail.

Tracking service is available for some countries. There is also a maximum 6000-yen insurance.

 

EMS

EMS is the fastest international mail service for sending up to 30 kg of documents and merchandise simply and conveniently to over 120 countries and territories worldwide.

 

Cool EMS

The temperature in the box is kept between 0 and 10 degrees C for the Chilled type and below minus 15 degrees C for the Frozen type. Door-to-door service is provided to meet the customer's needs at low cost.

 

5. Japan Post Tracking

You can track your parcel by your order number on Japan Post’s website or using some other third-party tracking tools (e.g.Trackingmore) which can track multiple packages of worldwide couriers all in one place. Most recent updating information is there. No more worries.

Reference: Japan Post/Japan Visitor

How to Tell the Order Status by shipment tracking Information

More than 500 couriers tracking services are available on Trackingmore although many of them only show shipment locations without the order’s status. So how do we classify all these into unified 7 status successfully?

 

Overview of 7 shipment status classified by Trackingmore:

 

▶ Not Found: There is no info for the Order Number.

▶ On transit: Your parcel is on its way.

▶ Arrived and To be delivered: Your parcel is being delivered.

▶ Failed delivery: Your parcel is delivered unsuccessfully.

▶ Collected successfully: Your parcel is collected successfully.

▶ Possible exception: Your parcel is possible returned or lost.

▶ Expired : Your parcel has been shipped for too long time and still has not been delivered.

 

 

Priorities of Shipment status

Possible Exception > Delivered Successfully > Failed Delivery > Arrived and to be Delivered > on Transit

 

Although we’ve set up a keyword bank, there’s still a possibility that we could met two keywords at the same time, i.e. both “Arrived and to be Delivered” and “Delivered Successfully”. If so, the shipment status is still seen as “Delivered Successfully” according to the Priorities of Shipment status above.

 

 

 

As both“Node state” and “final state”are involved in the shipment status, a “node state” will come up by identified from the keyword bank while the “final state” is decided based on Priorities of Shipment status.

 

Exceptions:

 

1. How to differ returned orders from normal ones?

• Returned order normally occurs with “customer refused”, “returned to shipper” or the like while there may be the words like “delivered successfully” at the same time. At this condition, in order to differ it from normal ones, we’ll marked the order as “possible exception”.

 

• If there is no words like “ returned to shipper”, but the parcel actually has been returned, we can tell the status by positions ( e.g. If a parcel is shipped from “Shandong Liaocheng Delivery Department” and collected at the same place, then there is a chance that it could be returned).

 

• As for international shipment, if the order is from China to the U.S. and collected in China or with the words like “import sealed” or “import opened” when transiting in China, it’s definitely returned.

 

2. Status identification affected by misleading keywords  

For instance, “delivered” stands for “the parcel has been collected” while “Will be delivered in 3 days” suggests an uncollected status. “Returned to the shipper” means the parcel is returned while “Will be returned to the shipper if nobody collects” refers to “arrived and to be collected” instead of returning to the shipper.

 

3. Identification keywords in Multi languages

Since various languages may appear in international delivery, it’s very important to perfect multi languages keywords bank for correct status identification.

 

For example, “collecting “ in Chinese, English, German, Japanese and Russian are respectively“妥投”、“delivered”、“zugestellt”、“お届け済み”、“ENTREGADO”、“Отправление доставлено”.

 

4. Differences among couriers

As there is not a series of unified words for all those couriers, the same word may have different meanings. So correction for a single courier may be needed.

 

E.g. The word “ delivered” may suggest that an order is just ready for the delivery in one courier’s information while the same word may mean “the parcel has been collected” by the addressee.

 

Conclusion:

 

First of all, good status auto-identification is based on enough data volume and continuously perfecting keyword bank.

Second, we should consider that in which part of the work people can be replaced by machines? Why can an experienced delivery man tell the status after just one glance of the order and how does he make it? Could this be replaced by machine?

So far, more than 1 million new order are tracked on Trackingmore every single day. We provide one of the best status auto identification service after three-year experience. Contact us if you have any problem about our tracking tool.

 

China Post Tracking System for Register Airmail, EMS and ePacket

China Post：Your Most Burning Questions About Tracking System

1. If I want send a package, how many delivery plans are available and which one should I choose?

Here are three most often used delivery services of China Post: Register Airmail, EMS and ePacket. You can choose one of them according to your exact requirements. Here are their advantages and disadvantages comparing to each other.

 

Register Airmail:

It’s the most economical one of the three China Post service choices with the lowest shipping service. Normally it takes about 2 to 4 weeks to arrive destination country from China. So, if you’re not in a rush, register airmail may be your best choice. Apart from airmail, SAL and SURFACE mails are also available. But we won’t talk so much about them as they are transported via land and sea transport which may take much longer to arrive destination country.

EMS:

EMS (short for Express Mail Service), is the fastest one, which normally takes about 1 to 2 weeks to arrive destination country from China. However, it’s the most expensive one among them. If time is the most important thing for you, then EMS is the best.

 

 

ePacket:

ePacket is a faster than register mail but lower than EMS. Of course, the price is much cheaper than EMS, but a little bit more expensive than register mail. It normally takes 2 to 4 weeks to arrive destination country.

In a word,

Price: Airmail < ePacket < EMS

Speed: Airmail< ePacket< EMS

 

2. What are China Post tracking numbers rules?

Register Airmail: 13-digit tracking code starting with letter "R" and ending with "CN". i.e. RR123456789CN.

EMS: 13-digit tracking code starting with letter "E" and ending with "CN". i.e. EE123456789CN

ePacket: starts with L (however LF and LH number still belong to airmail)

 

3. How to get help when you have questions about your parcel?

First, you can track your parcel online on China Post tracking website or some other third-party tracking webs. If there is no updating information about it online, you can call China Post hot line 11183 or 11185 in China (only Mandarin inquiry) or try +861011185 or +861011183 for English help. They will not answer your emails, so don’t try this way.

4. What’s the meaning of “shipping notice received”?

If you only receive one message “electronic data received”, this means your seller(shipper) applied a tracking number from China, but does not actually ship the goods yet.

 

 

The 5 Secrets To Effective CNE

What is CNE?

CNE is a professional logistics company with advanced communication system, automatic office equipment and necessary warehouse machinery outfits. They provide clients with check, track, quote safely, accurately and efficiently, as well as the best plan for special requirement. 

#1 Special line for global shipping 

CNE's special aviation lines for global shipping covering 231 countries and areas in Europe, America and Oceania make it possible for you to get your package faster and cost less money. It's one of the best choices for those cross-border sellers online. 

#2 Special services for oversea students 

For those Chinese oversea students, especially to western countries, it may be difficult to get accustomed to local foods. Every time thinking of those delicious foods once they had in China, they just can't help to ask for their friends' or families' favor.  But it's not convenient and may cost a lot. CNE also considered this and provide collecting and resending service for oversea students so that they can buy whatever they want on Taobao. 

#3 Cooperating with big E-commerce platforms 

CNE is one of the officially proven couriers for Amazon and an official partner of Wish, AliExpress, Dhgate and Joom.  You can chose CNE or CNE EXPRESS for delivery when purchasing on thsese websites. 

#4 Different plans for various requirements 

Except for the four plans: Special Line, Express, Small Parcel, Large Parcel, there are special services including insurance, zero tariff, Easy-small-parcel to Europe and collecting and resending service for oversea students.

Easy-small-parcel to Europe:

No.	Destination	First Weight 50g	Added Weight 10g	Time	CN22 Customs  Declaration
1	UK	9.50	0.80	6-9 workdays	No need
2	France	12.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
3	German	17.00	0.65	6-9 workdays
4	Italy	18.00	0.90	6-9 workdays
5	Austria	16.00	0.70	6-9 workdays
6	Belgium	15.50	0.90	6-9 workdays
7	Cyprus	8.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
8	Czech Republic	7.50	0.75	6-9 workdays
9	Danmark	18.00	1.00	6-9 workdays
10	Estonia	8.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
11	Finland	15.00	1.00	6-9 workdays
12	Greece	17.50	0.80	6-9 workdays
13	Hungary	10.00	0.70	6-9 workdays
14	Ireland	18.00	0.90	6-9 workdays
15	latvia	8.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
16	LTU(Lithuania)	7.50	0.75	6-9 workdays
17	Luxembourg	19.00	0.70	6-9 workdays
18	Malta	8.00	1.10	6-9 workdays
19	Netherlands	9.00	0.75	6-9 workdays
20	Poland	8.00	0.75	6-9 workdays
21	Portugal	9.00	0.85	6-9 workdays
22	Slovakia	8.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
23	Slovenia	8.50	0.85	6-9 workdays
24	Spain	8.50	0.80	6-9 workdays
25	Sweden	16.00	1.00	6-9 workdays
29	Romania	8.00	0.80	6-9 workdays
26	Bulgaria	7.50	1.10	6-9 workdays
27	Iceland	16.00	1.00	6-9 workdays
28	Norway	18.00	1.10	6-9 workdays
30	Switzerland	20.00	1.10	6-9 workdays

 

#5  Tracking your parcel online 

Can't stop thinking about your package? Where is it? When can you get it? Just Track it on our website or other third-party websites, like Trackingmore, Afership. 

5 best Shopify Shipping APPs you should know in 2018

As one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in the world, Shopify has been beneficial to millions of merchants and customers. Meanwhile, lots of Shopify apps are developed to help merchants to manage and develop their business. Today, I'd like to introduce you 5 handpicked shipping Apps for order tracking.

5 best Shopify Shipping APPs you should know

Time to try these tools to simplify your working flow!

#1 Tracktor

Tracktor is a professional tool for package tracking and order status checking. The layout is clear and clean. And the installation is very easy. As a tool, it does a great job in its functions. What makes it special is the Google Map it shows. So you can check the status of each order clearly and visually with Google Map. In addition, the turnaround time of their customer service is really quick and they can help you create a customized theme. So you can choose your favorite type that fits your store. Even its free test is much less than other shipping tools and it won't reset every month, but the price for a paid account is still affordable and acceptable.
Price
Free for first 100 tracking lookups
$14.99 for 2000 order tracking lookups per month
$29.99 for 5000 order tracking lookups per month

#2 Trackingmore

Trackingmore is a tracking solution provider. Its powerful features can meet all your needs. It is a little complicated to figure out how to use every feature, but one of the best things is, you can always find the best workaround for your needs. For example, filling out the shipping time when using CSV Upload help Amazon shop owners to monitor if their packages can meet the delivery time of Amazon, so they can take actions accordingly. And the Auto-fetch CSV can sync every change in the Google Drive Spreadsheet. Other functions like Tracking Page, Remote Area Checker, Track button, customized notification... It'll be better if they can publish a blog about those features and how can it help in combination. The design is a little old-fashioned, there are no fancy charts, but it's still practical.
Price
It's pay-as-you-go.
Free for 500 tracking numbers per month(free API for the first month)
$20 for 2500 tracking numbers
$50 for 8000 tracking numbers

#3 Shipping Tracker

This tool is similar to Tracktor & Trackingmore. The dashboard is clear and clean like a chart. It also classifies the package into different statues. And it can show its place in Google Map when the package is in pre-transit, in transit and delivered. So the customer can know where's their package visually. Unlike Trackingmore, it has 3 themes tracking page, and you can ask the team for more if you want something unique and special. This tool doesn't support as many couriers as others do, but most of the big international couriers are supported. The email & SMS notification is good, but it seems like the email template can't be fully customized. Beyond that, it does meet all your needs about tracking. But if the price is cost-effective, I think I need more time to figure it out.
Price
Free for 10 shipments per month
$85 for 2000 shipments per month
$175 for 5000 tracking numbers per month
SMS: $0.02 per sent

#4 Easyship

Compared with monitoring the tracking, things before shipping can be time-consuming and even drive you crazy. This friendly dropshipping app can help you handle many things before tracking, which saves your time to choose courier and calculate shipping cost. You don't need to be afraid of overspending anymore. With Easyship, you can check the exact amount of import taxes, VAT, GST and other fees. And you can print the label which is clear and easy to identify. In addition, it provides customs invoices and declarations, which saves a lot of time. However, it's only beneficial to shop owners in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia since it only supports a few big international shipping companies. Hope it'll integrate more couriers and benefits more merchants.
Price
No additional fee, you only need to pay the shipping rates as shown.

#5 Shippo

Shippo is another friendly app for dropshipping, same as Easyship. I haven't found any bulk operating button in Easyship, but Shippo supports bulk printing of shipping labels, generating return labels, tracking shipments and drafting international docs. It saves you lots of time when managing a bunch of orders. If you're a USPS and DHL Express user, they'll provide discounted shipping rates. Same as Easyship. you can also compare different couriers and choose the most suitable shipping solution for each order without installing any software. And they promise to provide support within 4 hours, which is a fast turnaround time. Unlike Easyship, you need to pay 5 cents for each label except the shipping cost of each package. 5 cents is not expensive, but if you have thousands of orders each month, or even more, it'll be a large budget that needs to be considered.
Price
$0.05 per label + shipping cost
Let them help you manage and develop your business!
5 Best Shopify Shipping Apps

Dropshipping: Things You Need to Know About Dropshipping in 2018

Dropshipping tends to be more and more popular these years. Then I would like to put dropshipping into the following five aspects.

What’s Dropshipping?

Disadvantages of Dropshipping

Advantages of Dropshipping

Perspectives to Improve Dropshipping

Dropshipping Product Ideas in 2018

Track All Your Dropshipping Parcels Just in One Place

What’s Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is when a vendor fulfills orders from a third party and has them shipped directly to the customer.

Disadvantages of Dropshipping

Sure, since you don’t have to manage or store your own inventory, the overhead is low — but so are the returns.

Because of the own distinctive features of dropshipping, there are two main disadvantages:low-profit margins and high competitiveness.

Since it fulfills orders from a third party, the disadvantage of dropshipping is also quite obvious: very low-profit margins. Most of the profits go to the suppliers and dropshipping can only get very little. Even worse, dropshipping sellers can hardly raise prices since customers will easily go to other suppliers for lower prices.

Due to the low overhead, dropshipping is highly competitive. So, it’s quite difficult to stand out among so many dropshipping sellers, especially for those who start from the scratch.

However, there are still advantages we can fully make use of. Let’s explore it.

Advantages of Dropshipping

Market research

Dropshipping can be used to reduce the risk in testing out new product types and thus used for market research.

Instead of increasing your inventory costs by having an unpredictable product stored in your warehouse, dropshipping could be a good choice for you to test out a new product with a trial period.

You can get two important information from the dropshipping testing:

Have a better estimate of how much it sells for; Identify a more accurate number of what quantity to buy for your initial stock.

Protection from overselling

Market fluctuations are not predictable all the time and overselling is one of them. Instead of overstocking to satisfy the unlikely situation, dropshipping products elsewhere could be a nice option, saving costs and having those sales at the same time. This is especially useful for seasonal overflow.

Flexibility to choose

Dropshipping has its natural advantage: Flexibility to choose. Without any pressure of inventory management, a wide range of choices can be got from various dropshipping suppliers.

  How can we better make use of the dropshipping advantages?     Below are some dropshipping ideas for your reference.

Perspectives to Improve Dropshipping 

1 Hard to find elsewhere on the internet

Once a product begins to go viral in one place, many sellers begin to sell the same products. And the advantages of selling this product becomes less competitive. So a better solution is to find out the products that are hard to be found by other sellers. This is not easy, but you will get a relatively long advantage over other competitors once you find it.

2 Test out the products yourself

Before selling, you have to have a good and thorough understanding of the products. For one reason, you can offer detailed solutions when facing customers’ inquiries about the products; for another reason, it is more convincing for your customers if you are the product user yourself.

3 Find the distinctive features of your products and identify your targeted buyers

The other reason customers buy products from you rather than from others is your product have distinctive features other products don’t have. The distinctive features can easily help you differentiate from other competitors. Then, the next step is to identify the targeted buyers or your niche.

4 Interesting enough to attract eyeballs

Now, people like to show their characteristics and specialty by what they use that are different from others. So, they are more and more valuing the novelties and specialty of a product. It is important to find an interesting object that can attract customers’ attention as soon as they see it.

5 Write an advertorial about your product

If you have finished all the four steps above, then you can move to the advertorial part. It requires you to present your products in a clear and detailed way. From your advertorial, customers will get what they need to know: like the basic introduction of the products; distinctive features of your products; and suitable occasions for the use of the products. The more detailed your articles are, the more likely your customers are convinced to buy your products.

Dropshipping Product Ideas in 2018

Want to differentiate from other competitors? Be different first. What kind of products can be considered unique among all the sellers? If you’re interested in dropshipping but don’t know where to start, here’s a list of product ideas for inspiration. Below are some product ideas for reference:

 Novelty t-shirts

 Novelty t-shirts are trendy these years without no reason. Young people love the t-shirts with their favorite mottoes on. Novelty t-shirts will never be out of data as long as you have new ideas and thoughts to be presented.

 Funny coffee mugs

Funny coffee mugs are also favored by many office workers. One good example is Puzzle Mug. The color and design of this mugs will definitely attract a lot of attention.

 Motivational bookmarks

Like novelty t-shirts, bookmarks can also include many design elements. Bookmarks with cute and interesting designs can also lead to volumes of sales.

 Inexpensive watches or jewelry

Novel but inexpensive accessories are always favored by fashion lovers. Below are products that might bring you some inspiration about accessories:

     Skeleton watch, like World Map Watch

      

      

      Animal Ring

      

      Choker Necklace

      Arrow Bracelet

Track All Your Dropshipping Parcels Just in One Place

In most cases, dropshipping products are from different suppliers, which may cause some trouble in package tracking. If a customer buys from different suppliers at the same time, it’s not recommended to let your customer track all the parcels from different websites. But, don’t worry. Third-party tracking platforms, like TrackingMore, can easily help you fix that. With 530+ couriers from all over the world, almost all the tracking info can be acquired on TrackingMore. Plus, if you want your customers to stay on your own page, TrackingMore also offers you “Track Button” solution. This feature allows you to design the “Track Button” according to your own preference.