Regular air mail?

Question

any 1 out can can help me with this. I live in the United States (West Coast). I ordered a package through ebay from a guy in Germany on 11/24/2006 with regular air mail, that was the only option for shipping, and also was free. i was wondering how long does regular air mail takes? it's been two weeks still no package. he told me there's no traking number, and its in the post office hands. Me, no idea where the package is, and how much longer do i have to wait for? :-(

Answer 1

It can take some time. Remember, in addition to actual shipping time, the package must clear German customs leaving the country (transportation threat assessment) and American customs entering the United States. Depending on the item, customs duties may also have to be assessed, which can delay delivery further.

Two to four weeks is not out of the ordinary for an international shipment by regular airmail (about the slowest option available today). Even four to eight weeks would not be especially unusual. In the future, if you want an item quicker, be prepared to pay the much higher costs associated with the faster shipping methods (UPS International Express, DHL, and others).

By the way, since the package is traveling through at least two postal systems (USA and Germany), each with different methods and no way to access each others electronic systems, it's not at all unusual for there to be no tracking available. Again, the more expensive services (UPS, DHL, etc) offer tracking for the international package shipments they handle.