International shipping status – March 2022 update
COVID has seriously interrupted global shipping channels for the past two years, and the situation in Ukraine has amplified this even further during the past few weeks. There is a lot of global instability right now and unfortunately that’s not likely to change soon, so expect unpredictability and know that all of this could quickly become out of date!
However, as of right now the global shipping situation has returned to normal. Australia and New Zealand are once again processing standard first class mail from the United States, so the GlobalPost relay through DAI is no longer necessary. (And it probably goes without saying, but mail to Russia has been suspended as well.)
Transit times
Transit times are still unpredictable. Sometimes a package will arrive in as little as two weeks, but in some cases (especially inland Europe) it’s been taking up to 8 weeks. It’s extremely rare for a package to be lost altogether, so please be patient and understand that once it gets picked up by the post office, there’s not anything else we can do to speed it up or to get it unstuck if it’s been sitting in a customs office for a week or two. But if an order hasn’t arrived after 8 weeks, get in touch and we’ll make it right.
International shipping alternatives
USPS of course isn’t the only way to get packages overseas. While FedEx and DHL are prohibitively expensive (USD$100 or more), UPS has a few options depending on the destination country that are closer to USD$50-60 and usually arrive within a week. They often charge a significant brokerage fee for customs, so you may end up paying a lot more in import duties than you would have with a normal USPS shipment, but it’s an option. The website checkout doesn’t currently have it as a selectable shipping method, but if you contact us before ordering then we can give you a quote and send an invoice for the difference.
A second option for European customers is to order from Musikding. They stock nearly all of our PCBs, and new releases usually are in stock within a month or two. They do have kits, although they are different than ours and are more just a collection of all the parts (i.e. standard assembly methods and wiring, normal resistors, bare enclosures). But if you’re just looking for PCBs then this will save time and money.
The third option great for people who order a lot from the USA: an international shipping service such as MyUS (myus.com), which collects all of your USA orders and ships them to you in one package whenever you decide. From our perspective, it’s a domestic order, so we just mail it to the address of the service and they coordinate with you from there. Several customers use MyUS and other similar services and I’ve only heard good things.
