I’ve been in Japan since early September (international student) and I’ve been wanting to send souvenirs/presents to my family. Problem is, it’s insanely expensive to do so. From what I can see on the JP website, aside from the super cheap 2-3 months option and the crazy expensive next-day option, there used to be a SAL option that was a great middle-of-the-road option that took 1-2 weeks and was moderately priced but still affordable. From what I’ve read, it was shut down (along with basically all other international mail) during the pandemic and has yet to be reinstated.
Again, from what I can gather through the JP website, there’s currently a shortage of cargo space due to a shortage of international flights out of Japan even though where I am in Tokyo, it seems like every other person is a tourist and they all have to get home somehow.
Does anyone have any insight as to why SAL hasn’t resumed even though the country is open and bustling with tourists and a good chunk of health mandates have been dropped? I know I’m likely missing something but I’m probably way too green to know what. I know I sound whiny, but it’s just super frustrating that my only options are either pay a small fortune in shipping fees to get it there faster than I need, or wait 2-3 months for it to get there.
Also any recommendations on sending おみやげ overseas (carriers: JP, DHL, FedEx, etc; and/or service packages) would be greatly appreciated.
7 comments
Small packet air RIP 😭😭
After I discovered 国際ePacket I stop caring about SAL tbh. 国際ePacket is available to many countries currently. I don’t expect SAL to return tbh.
Small Packet Air and Small Packet SAL will come back eventually.
SAL generally takes 2-4 weeks but can take much much much longer during peak seasons. 1-2 months around Christmas, for example.
Edit: The downvotes crack me up. SAL is a lower priority service than regular Airmail. SAL travels by air from Japan on a space-available basis. For much of the year this is not a serious problem and items will generally arrive in 2-4 weeks. A little faster if you are lucky. However when airmail is busy there can be a lack of cargo space available and SAL items can sit waiting for additional time. 4-8 weeks is not an unexpected delivery time when this happens. SAL also travels by land in the destination country so for some countries with very large area or very slow surface transport systems, this can add additional time.
Is ePacket not available for your country? It’s much faster than SAL, much cheaper than EMS, and comes with tracking barcode for free (SAL asks for 410 yen for barcode)
Yeah, I run an online subscription model business and this has been…. an issue haha.
Small packet don’t send to the UK or I think the US which is what is the problem for me.
The Japanese site seems to have more information, and I’m tracking it pretty regularly, I’ll let you know as soon as I see updates.
Packages don’t care about health mandates or how many tourists are visiting.
What matters is that there are still fewer flights, and they are all full, so there’s less room for mail. And Japan Post prioritizes EMS over slower airmail.
I heard that prices are going up again and the delivery regions like Europe, USA, Latin America, Oceana are going to be rearranged like EMS was but to SAL, this is coming in the next few months I think October, once these changes are implemented I assume SAL will come back after its 3 year hiatus lol. Or they might just wait till the new year so they don’t have to handle the year end Christmas cards, because why not, its already been so long.
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To be honest though, if you have a large volume contract with DHL or FEDEX its going to be cheaper than EMS to use this and only 500-1000 JPY more than SAL and the merit of SAL has gone down the shitter thanks to capitalizing on the never ending COVID delay excuse and incompetence of the Japan Post.