Things You Need to Know About ePacket Shipping

As more and more ecommerce seller are making purchases from stores and marketplace outside their country, the need of having a fast, efficient, and cheap shipping is the need of the hour.

And this need leads to the advent of ePacket shipping.

ePacket shipping has made buying products from a place outside your country of residence a lot easier, 

but before incorporating it into your business, you need to know a lot about the ePacket shipping.

In the following article, I am going to answer the following questions: 

• What is an ePacket?
• What are the benefits of having epackets shipping?
• What are the limitations of having ePackets shipping?
• What are the requirements to use ePacket shipping?
• What are delivery fees and customs with ePacket shipping?
• Which is the list of countries having ePacket shipping?
• What is the average shipping time to these Countries?
• How ePacket shipping helps Dropshipping?
• How ePacket tracking works?

Let’s Start!

What is an ePacket?

ePacket, in simple terms, is a shipping method offered by merchants in China and Hongkong. It started in the year 2011. As the name “e-packets” implies, the delivery service designed for the e-commerce industry. 

To call a packet(which is to be shipped) an ePacket, it has to qualify some parameters like dimension, weight, value (of the product to be shipped), etc. 

(I have explained these parameters in the latter part of this article)

ePacket had started to provide more affordable and faster service for consumers to receive their orders from online stores and marketplaces that shipped out from China and Hong Kong.

ePacket shipping began by delivering to the United States of America, but as of now, it is serving more than 35 countries including United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

(List of countries  provided in the latter part of this article )

Benefits of having ePackets shipping

• Faster Delivery: After the arrival of ePackets, shipment time has transformed a lot, customers can now enjoy the fast delivery at cheaper rates. 
• Earlier customers have to wait for at least a whole month or more to get their order delivered. With ePacket shipping, the cross-border delivery time has reduced to an average of 7–20 days to reach them.

• Cheaper Delivery: The reason behind the success of ePackets shipping is less delivery fee. Earlier, people find it challenging to pay a shipping fee of $40 for a product of $10.
• But now, ePacket has made the business pretty much profitable. With fast and cheap delivery, people can be able to price the products competitively

• Supports Dropship: Popular dropshipping sites like AliExpress, Oberlo, and eBay gives an option of ePacket shipping.
• As ePackets introduced in Dropshipping, it drastically cuts the shipping time as well as shipping fee, which leads to excellent customer satisfaction.

Limitations of having ePackets

• Limited Availability: Epackets are available only for 35-40 countries, and if you do not belong to these countries, then anyhow you cannot enjoy this service.

•  Limited product Selection: Not every product listed on dropshipping sites like Alibaba, Oberlo, eBay, etc. are available for ePacket delivery as there are size, weight, and price constraints.

 
Requirements to Use ePacket Delivery Method

ePacket does not support the shipment of every product because there are some parameters that one should always follow before opting ePacket shipping which are as follows:

#1 Dimension:

Minimum: 

For normal package: 

The length and width should be 14 cm and 9 cm respectively.

For cylindrical shape:

The length should be 10 cm, and twice the diameter plus the length should not be more than 17 cm. 

If the packages are smaller than the length specified, it is advisable to use a larger box and add in the filler material.

Maximum:

For normal package: 

The length and width should be 60 cm, and the Addition of length, width, and thickness must not exceed 90 cm.

For cylindrical shape:

The length must not exceed 90 cm, and twice the diameter plus the length should not be more than 104 cm. 

#2 Weight: 

The weight of the package to be shipped cannot exceed 2 kg (4.4l bs) which comprises the weight of the product, the filler material, the shipping box, and the packaging material.

Israel is the only country whose package can weight up to 3 kg (6.6 lbs).

#3 Value: 

The value of any product must not exceed $400 (US Dollars), and it should only be shipped to the countries eligible for ePacket delivery.  

 
Delivery fees and Customs with ePacket Shipping

Delivery fees depend on the country of the shipment; 

If the country is the United States of America, there are 100% chances that there are free Shipping and less delivery time, as the frequency of orders to the US is higher.

However, you might have to pay more, and there will be a lengthier delivery time to other countries such as Canada.

For the customs and taxes, there is no difference between ePacket shipping or any other shipping methods; the ePacket shipping goes through regular custom clearances.

 You may have to pay customs and taxes for the product you are ordering for which you can enquire with your merchant.   

List of countries having ePacket shipping

As of September 2019, there are a total of 39 countries that you can ship to:

1. Australia

2. Austria

3. Belgium

4. Brazil

5. Canada

6. Denmark

7. Finland

8. France

9. Germany

10. Greece

11. Hong Kong

12. Hungary

13. Ireland

14. Indonesia (currently in a trial run)

15. Israel

16. Italy

17. Japan

18. Kazakhstan (currently in a trial run)

19. Korea

20. Luxembourg

21. Malaysia

22. Mexico

23. Netherlands

24. New Zealand

25. Norway

26. Poland

27. Portugal

28. Russia

29. Saudi Arabia

30. Singapore

31. Spain

32. Sweden

33. Switzerland

34. Thailand (currently in a trial run)

35. Turkey

36. Ukraine

37. United Kingdom

38. United States

39. Vietnam (currently in a trial run)

Average Shipping time to these Countries

Brazil takes  20 to 30 business days

Mexico takes 20 business days

Russia, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia takes 7-15 business days

All other supported countries take 7-10 business days

ePacket shipping and Dropshipping

Most of the products drop shippers sell are manufactured and distributed by China and Hong Kong. 

And ePacket is proved to be a boon to dropshippers as it helped them in inexpensive cross-border shipments in more than 35 countries with less delivery time compared to others.

eBay, Oberlo, Aliexpress are some of the merchants that offer ePacket delivery.

How ePacket tracking works?

Tracking of ePackets is same as tracking of any ordinary shipment; After placing an order, you will receive a tracking code.

You can track your deliveries from Alibaba, Oberlo, etc. if the purchases made from these websites otherwise you can use third-party tracking services like:

• Trackhive
• 17Track
• Aftership
• Package Trackr
• Package Mapping
  
  

By now, you have gathered enough knowledge of how useful an ePacket shipping can be for your Ecommerce business;

So, I hope you are not going to waste a single minute to start opting ePacket delivery for your future purchases. 

 
If you feel that we have left something on ePackets, do write to us in the comment section below, and we will write back to you as soon as possible.

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