Why does ePacket take so long? Where is my ePacket? What are alternatives to ePacket?

If you’ve been in the dropshipping business for a while, you should be all too familiar with ePacket and its unpredictable delivery time, the stagnant status on the tracking number updates, or the mysteriously missing packages.

Why does ePacket take so long to deliver?!  Many drop shippers are perplexed by ePacket’s delivery time announced to them by their suppliers vs. the actual delivery time it takes to get the package to get to their customers.

By the end of this article, we’ll show you the hidden truth behind ePacket’s operation and point you to a better shipping alternative (such as using CJ Dropshipping’s direct USPS method) instead ePacket.

EPacket was a trilateral agreement brokered by eBay China, USPS and China Registered Post (aka EMS) to enhance cross-border e-commerce shipping.

To better understand the long delivery time of e-Packet, we must be understanding how the China Registered Post operates.

It’s an open secret that China’s governmental departments operate in a bureaucratic atmosphere.  What this means is that although the laws are written on the books, there are secret paths, shortcut, and loopholes available for those who know how to pull the right strings.  What these hidden shortcuts create is an opportunity for some to profit massively in the uneven plain field, and ePacket delivery is one good example.

Let’s take a look at how ePacket SHOULD operate….

Your dropshipping supplier (for example Aliexpress or CJ Dropshipping) receives your order, they print out the ePacket label and attached it to your package.  Epacket carriers will pick up the package, deliver that package to a local collection point.  The package then goes through the central sorting facility and then gets cleared through the Chinese custom and proceed to the destination country.  Sounds straight-forward enough, right?

The delay in shipment happens in two areas, the collection points, and customs clearing.

There are tens of thousands of collection points all across China and they are subject to China Registered Post’s minimum pricing.  For example, let’s just say that China Registered Post’s minimum charge to process one package is $1.00.  However, because there are so many collection points in different areas of China, and different collection points will have a different volume of packages coming in daily, their operation costs also differ.  Therefore, the price that these collection points charge to collect the ePacket delivery also differs depending on where they are located at.

If the collection points are located near metropolitan cities such as Beijing or Shanghai, they might charge $2.50 per package because they are busier and the cost of maintaining the operation is higher.  If the collection points located in a more rural area, they might charge $2.10 per package to attract more packages to their facility.  These pricing difference in collection points are acceptable to China Registered Post, the only requirement that China Registered Post has for these collection points is the minimum pricing ($1.00 in this example) and a certain volume of package collections per day.

After the ePacket carrier collects the package from your dropshipping supplier, the logical thing to do will be to deliver these packages to the nearest local collection point.  However, if the local collection point is charging $2.50 per package, and a collection point 12 hours away might be only charging $2.25 per package, the ePacket carrier will delay the shipment of the packages by sending it to the cheaper collection point to make an extra $0.25 per package.  So if they have 20,000 packages to deliver to a collection point, by choosing the cheaper collection point, the ePacket carrier makes an extra $5,000 (20,000 pkg X $0.25/ pkg) per day!

So now your packages get sorted by a local sorting hub that’s 12 hours away from the nearest export point, it has to make its way back before it can get on the plane and head out to the destination country.

That’s why you might see an ePacket tracking delayed “In-transit” in the same place for many days before it heads out of the country, well, because it’s going on a tour all over China!

The second possible point of delay is when the packet arrives at the custom.  After the package finally gets to the collection point, sorted through the sorting facility and on its way to go out of China, it can arrive at one of the many airports across China.  Keep in mind that not all airports in China are international airports.  The package might arrive at a domestic airport where it has a more relaxed process before getting on a plane.  These packages will ultimately get to an international airport before flying out the country.

A plethora assortments of packages will be collected and bulk packaged before getting on the international airplane, these packages maybe include products that contain lithium batteries, powder, liquid, gel which require special handling at most international airports.  If one of these packages did not properly declare its property and it got caught through the clearance, and your ePacket is lumped into the same bulk package, the custom will pull the whole bulk package aside for re-inspection.  That adds to several days (if you’re lucky) of delay to your ePacket delivery.

So what are alternatives to ePacket delivery?

A more reliable alternative for dropshipping delivery is to partner with established dropshipping suppliers such as CJ Dropshipping who has a direct partnership with local carriers like the USPS.

There are several ways that CJ Dropshipping can provide fast, reliable and cost-effective shipping methods for your dropshipping needs:

1. If your products are general merchandise, you can choose to use CJ Dropshipping’s USPS+ method, where we ship your items via UPS from China to our US Warehouse, which takes 1-3 business days. The item gets inspected for any damages and gets picked up by local USPS carrier the same day.  USPS first class delivery time is 2-5 days, and Priority Mail is 1-3 days.  The total delivery time for dropshipping your package from China to your US customers takes 5-10 days.  That’s an incredible improvement from ePacket’s 12- 20 days of delivery time.

2. If your product contains sensitive materials such as battery and magnets, CJ Dropshipping can dropship your packages from the China warehouse to our US warehouse via DHL. This trip from China to the US takes 5-7 days. The packages then get inspected for any damaged and get shipped out the same day via USPS First class or Priority mail.  This method is called the USPS method which takes 5-12 days to deliver—this is an incredible improvement from the 7-15 days via ePacket.

3. You can drop ship items directly from CJ’s US warehouses, see a list of inventories available for listing in their US warehouse here. This has the shortest delivery time since the item is already in the US, they process the item the same day it gets shipped through USPS which takes 2-5 days for delivery.

A few advantages your dropshipping business will immediately experience by using the USPS method provided by CJ Dropshipping is that:

1. CJ Dropshipping provides USPS labels on your dropshipping package so it looks like your business is operating from the US and not dropshipping from China. It’s an unfortunate bias against Chinese products but it does add an abstract layer of assurance and satisfaction for some of your US-based customers.

2. You might think that with this type of delivery speed, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.  That’s not the case—not even close.  CJ Dropshipping’s USPS method offers drop shippers a very competitive price, competitive enough to take on ePacket pricing.

3. Using this method also offers another great benefit in case your customers want to return a product. Epacket prices for returning products back to China is very expensive.  You can spare your product a trip back to China by just returning to your California warehouse.

Dropshipping is a hot-trending online retail method in 2018, in order to compete and get ahead in this business, making sure your customer’s orders get delivered on time in a reliable manner plays an important role in the growth of your dropshipping business.  So don’t just think you are stuck with Epacket if you are doing drop shipping, head over to https://app.cjdropshipping.com and check them out!

In addition, The Bloomberg News released that President Trump plans to stop foreign goods from flooding into America at a lower price by canceling the discount of international postal. This will definitely increase the price of ePacket. As a matter of fact, our ePacket shipper carriers have already announced that they will be raising the price for the peak season in 2018. The goal behind President Trump’s decision is to nurture domestic trade. Therefore, It’s obvious that ePacket is no longer a wise option now. Why not try CJ’s own CJPacket shipping method.

In the meantime, after realizing the shortcomings of ePacket, with the aim to bring our customers a satisfactory shipping experience, the CJPacket shipping method was recommended. And CJ had settled a warehouse in the US, you can either pre-stock your products there or ship your products out of there. Both are of great convenience.

Here are some advantages of CJPacket shipping method compared with ePacket:

1. First of all, the CJPacket shipping method had always been kept the lowest shipping price and brought the customers the shortest shipping period. For example, to ship a product weight 300g to the US, the shipping cost by ePacket is $5.05 while that by CJPacket shipping method is $4.82. And the ePacket took about 7-20 Day(s) while the CJPacket shipping method took 10 days at length. The difference is obvious.
2. CJ’s own CJPacket shipping method has a steady delivery date of 5-10 days whereas ePacket in peak season to the US might take up to 30-45 days. That is to say that even during peak seasons, such as Chinese New Year, the shipping period wouldn’t fluctuate.
3. The CJPacket shipping method is connected closely with our platform, it is more convenient to track and update the shipping conditions, and the customers will be more settled down.
4. CJ will have insurance/protection of the shipping from China to the US, so you don’t need to worry about the accident during shipping. Just wait till your products arrived.
5. Since the ePacket had reached its full capacity now, the CJPacket shipping method had absorbed various meaningful experiences from other shipping methods, and had overcome the shortcomings, thus built its own complete shipping route.

*Note: The fastest shipping method is USPS+, a US domestic shipping method.

CJPacket available countries are as below: US, AU, CA, DE, MX, FR, AT, SE, BR, ES, GB, IT, DK, NL, KR_DEL, BE, LU_DEL, IN