How To Avoid Pitfalls of International Freight Shipping

You may enjoy the delivery services provided by the local couriers, they are almost on time every time and fast–some companies even support same-day delivery or overnight delivery. That’s because they use mainly surface delivery, road or railway, since the destination of the parcel is within the borderline.

However, when it comes to international shipping, especially oversea freight shipping, things can be much much more unpredictable, surprising, or even tricky sometimes. For international shipping, surface delivery is never an option, only air shipping and sea shipping are on the list for you to choose. Compared with surface delivery, air shipping and sea shipping are less stable. Besides, international shipping has many more steps than courier shipping, which means it takes longer from the outset, and that there are more opportunities for delays because you will never know which step the parcel get stuck in.

International is complicated and time-consuming, the first step to avoid the pitfalls is to prepare enough time for the shipping. The estimated shipping time is just a reference, an estimation, no international shipping service providers can guarantee their customers an exact date or time. If you believe it is accurate, you have a bigger chance to experience disappointment.

At ShopShipShake, the journey of our clients’ orders from the suppliers to your door is divided into 2 parts: from the suppliers to our China’s warehouse, and from China’s warehouse to the clients’ addresses.

As for China’s logistics which is the simpler part, for it is courier shipping, there are 5 steps: Awaiting payment, Paid, Purchased, Seller shipped and Collected.

Moving to the international logistics, here comes the complicated part, it includes 7 steps: Order confirmed, Packaging completed, Enter warehouse, Out of warehouse, Clearance（CN）, Air shipping, At the destination, Dispatching and Client received.

As you can see, international shipping includes many steps, more factors can influence the shipping time. In terms of the estimated shipping time, they are not accurate. To avoid disappointment, please leave more time than the estimated time and wait patiently.