ePacket
If you’ve ever used AliExpress to source products for your ecommerce store, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled upon ePacket before.
ePacket is a worldwide courier system that quickly delivers parcels to customers from ecommerce sellers based in countries like Korea, Hong Kong & China. In the past, ecommerce sellers or customers in the US or the UK, for example, would wait weeks and weeks for their orders to arrive—not anymore. With ePacket, it’s now possible to receive orders much faster, like in 4–9 days as opposed to 2–4 weeks.
The reason this is possible is because of a deal that the US Postal Service (USPS) made in 2011 with other national postal services in other countries. This agreement means that deliveries are faster for products that are lightweight and cheap such as packages weighing under 4.4lb and valued at less than $400.
As an ecommerce seller, providing customers with a faster delivery service usually results in higher customer satisfaction rates.
What else does ePacket do?
ePacket offers free returns on orders that aren’t delivered. You’ll also be able to track your customers’ orders from door-to-door. Plus, you’ll automatically be cleared at customs for any taxes and duties payable. Lastly, ePacket costs are typically lower than what the USPS charges for their first-class delivery. So, you and your customers should save a pretty penny too—what’s not to love about that?!
Where Does ePacket Ship To?
Are we only talking about shipping products from China, Korea, and Hong Kong? In short, no. ePacket has now expanded to cover a good range of other countries, including:
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Luxembourg
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Vietnam
How Long Has ePacket Existed?
It’s been around for decades. The United Nations treaty permits national postal services around the world to provide each other with significant discounts which is an excellent initiative for encouraging global trade.
The Advantages & Disadvantages of ePacket
The advantages of ePacket are clear: It’s faster, cheaper, gives delivery confirmation and tracking, and in theory, it should equate to higher sales rates for online merchants.
The main disadvantages of using ePacket are that it isn’t available everywhere in the world, there’s a ceiling on product weight, dimensions, and the value of products that can be delivered.
