Hi guys,

I wanted to ask if any of you have had any concerns with Deutsche Post as a watch I purchased a month ago appears to be lost in limbo. Seller sent the package Feb 16 and the tracking info stopped on Feb 18 stating this:


Local Philippine Post claims that their tracking info states that the courier service is using Surface Air Lift. I;m not sure if that's a cause of the delay.

Anyway, any insights on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Anything I've ever bought from Germany takes ages with long gaps of silence. It sucks.

I'm not a huge fan of DHL.

 

I've never dealt with Deutsche Post but I had a similar problem with a watch shipped from Poland a few months back. It took basically a full month for the status to finally update:



It was finally delivered on Jan 18. I never really got a clear answer as to what happened... just something about difficulties shipping to the US. The watch was completely fine when it arrived, but it does suck not knowing for weeks on end.

 

I bought a watch from a German seller on Dec. 6th, it arrived on January 31st. The only time tracking showed any movement was when the seller contacted Deutsche Post. It took 3 days to get to me once it landed in the US. On the other hand, I sent a watch to Amsterdam, via DHL, on March 10th and it arrived today.

 

You should go to your local post office yourself with all the details that you have, don't call.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/pro...d-incomplete-address.53576/page-2#post-659038

 

Hey Dre, I'm already in touch with the postal office inside the airport of destination (the office that receives the packages and dispatches to one's local post office). In fact they were the ones who told me that SAL was used. Going to my local postal office wouldn't amount to anything, believe you me (remember, I'm in a 3rd world country).

So, I'm still ok since mine has "just" been 24 days, I guess. On the other hand, the seller has contacted Deutsche Post several times (to his credit) already.

Now I know. At least, this is reassuring. Thanks J!

 

I too haven't had a half decent mail experience with DHL from Germany. 3 weeks and paying DHL prices as packages go dark for over 10 days....(in Germany).

 

Finally, almost a month, some movement a few days back. I had to call the port of arrival and ask when they will send it to my post office as I found out it wouldn't be delivered to my door. Today, I finally got it!

 

Very common with most international post to post connections.

Scan for delivery are the only ones that pick up international packages. All other scanners are automatic scans of bags only not items

Your watch spends most of the time in a bag with other post compared to FedEx and the likes it is a parcel

 

All's well that ends well. That shipping experience with DHL/Deutsche Post was a thriller. I am so happy it finally arrived!
What I learned is that DHL is the same as Deutsche Post if you are shipping abroad from Germay. It is signed but not really tracked. The only difference is that they charge you 2.5 times the costs and the customer service is fully crap. You have to go for DHL Express if you want to speed things up (~70 Euro to Asia) .

But there is an alternative for Germany and UK based residents as I just discovered:

https://www.transglobalexpress.de/
https://www.transglobalexpress.co.uk/

This company is sharing it's business rates, which the get from the big parcel services, with it's customers.

For example 1kg small package door to door:
- Germany to Asia with TNT for ~32 Eur
- UK to US with UPS Express SAver for 23 GBP

I will give them a try next time.

 

Let me shed some light here (maybe) as to the tracking problem as a German.

There is something misleading/confusing with the declaration of packages in Germany when consulting the German post.

We call a package "Paket" and a Small Package "Päckchen"

Now, if I send a watch I usually buy an "S" sized box to ship it in as it's perfectly suitable for a watch without box and papers.

I'd naturally would call this a "päckchen"
as it's a rather small box.

Now to the "confusing" part:

If you hand this in at the post office you can send this package as a "Paket" or as a "Päckchen" even thou it's the same sized S box.

The difference is (apart from insurance) that the "Päckchen" will not have Full Tracking, apart from "send" and "received"! If you want it to be fully trackable you have to send it as a "Paket".

I think some German sellers are not aware of this and the clerks at the post office don't always hint you in the right direction as they assume most of the time you, as a customer, want the cheapest option which would be sending it as a
"Päckchen".

A Päckchen basicly gets treated like a normal letter, while the "Paket" will be handled like a parcel enabling full tracking and more advanced insurance options.

Cheers,

Max

 

Very interesting Max!

 

Hi Max,

unfortunately this is not fully correct. The parcel discussed here was a "DHL Paket" at a whopping cost of 47 Euros no Päckchen (even it it was packed in a small box). There was actually no tracking update for ~4 weeks and DHL was not able to tell where the parcel is located right now. I got three different stories, they actually did not know where it is. If you dig deeper on the homepage of DHL you see that they are woring together with Deutsche Post for international parcels (EMS like service). If you want a real time trackable service you have to chose DHL Express which is something completely different in this case comparable to UPS, TNT etc.

Cheers

 

Hi @yako54 , seems like I didn't pick up that it was shipped as a Paket. My bad. That's wierd then, as it should be fully trackable.

Yet, the info given is true for the differenciation between "Päckchen" and "Paket".

I didn't want to go into to much detail in my above post, but you are absolutely correct that DHL Express is a completely different story and more like a Currier Service like UPS as you mentioned.

I would advise to use DHL Express for shipping overseas for everything of greater value.

The costs.... well that's another story .

Cheers,

Max

 

Having no FedEx in the state I live in the post is contracted to move it for FedEx without tracking

Had a priority shipped with FedEx from New York to me but FedEx does not give to the post as a priority to save money

Caught them out and got sent a free metal plane as a gift.....

 

Tracking parcels on this site is easy and clear - https://parceltrackingapp.com/en

 

Great you opened up an account to tell us

 

I had a similar case when I ordered something from Greece. It was actually stuck at the airport and the tracking status did not change anymore. Anyone knew where it was exactly and no one could tell me what to do, that sucked. In the case of Germany, maybe there are also some issues with the German Packaging Act. But I'm not completely sure whether it also applies when shipping from Germany to somewhere else or only the other way round.