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Author Topic: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)  (Read 178591 times)

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Offline Mikeav8r

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #125 on: May 13, 2014, 05:39:31 PM »
I wasn't sure if USPS was viable with Russia right now

I don't think relations are that bad just yet.  :)  But customs in Russia can be slow, four weeks isn't unheard of - although it is improving (although I had a Post Office item stuck in US Customs four weeks recently).

For important documents, I would use Fedex, UPS or DHL. Documents clear faster with the couriers. Internationally generally, I prefer UPS. If it matters, thats who I use.

Noted, thanks.

To be honest, the FedEx office is a few blocks from my house and the UPS place is across town...the closer one wins  :chuckle:

I'll compare them and see if a drive is worth the effort...
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Offline ECR844

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #126 on: May 14, 2014, 01:30:34 AM »
Everything works fine in RU at the moment as far as UPS, FEDEX, USPS, etc... BY I'd recommend you stick solely with USPS.

Offline Danchik

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #127 on: May 14, 2014, 02:02:52 AM »
I wasn't sure if USPS was viable with Russia right now

I don't think relations are that bad just yet.  :)  But customs in Russia can be slow, four weeks isn't unheard of - although it is improving (although I had a Post Office item stuck in US Customs four weeks recently).

For important documents, I would use Fedex, UPS or DHL. Documents clear faster with the couriers. Internationally generally, I prefer UPS. If it matters, thats who I use.

Noted, thanks.

To be honest, the FedEx office is a few blocks from my house and the UPS place is across town...the closer one wins  :chuckle:

I'll compare them and see if a drive is worth the effort...
Mike, they'll come to your place and pick up the package FWIW. Just call them.
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Offline Manny

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #128 on: August 25, 2016, 02:14:35 PM »
We have a domestic DPD business account. They are awesome in the UK, and pretty slick within the EU and Eastern Europe (Czech, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, etc).

So when our DPD rep visited recently, I asked him about Russia. Surprisingly, he said Russia was a big market they hoped to expand into, and they go there already. You need a company reg number or an internal passport number to send there, and five copies of the invoice. No biggie.

He enabled our account to send to Russia. For those who do not have an account, you can access them via sites like parcelmonkey or parcel2go.

So today we had an order from Russia, St Pete. As a point of reference the box was 33 x 46 x 26cms and 5.7kgs. Our price calculator shows that @ £65 (no VAT as outside the EU). Not bad I thought.......

The DPD system (in the UK) does not accept the Cyrillic alphabet (it throws an error when we tried), so we transliterated it into English. Invoices were in Russian to speed local customs clearance.

It was collected today, so I will track it and see how long it takes it to get there, clear customs and be delivered. Site estimate says 5-8 days.
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Offline Manny

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #129 on: September 21, 2016, 12:39:49 PM »
We have a domestic DPD business account. They are awesome in the UK, and pretty slick within the EU and Eastern Europe (Czech, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, etc).

So when our DPD rep visited recently, I asked him about Russia. Surprisingly, he said Russia was a big market they hoped to expand into, and they go there already. You need a company reg number or an internal passport number to send there, and five copies of the invoice. No biggie.

He enabled our account to send to Russia. For those who do not have an account, you can access them via sites like parcelmonkey or parcel2go.

So today we had an order from Russia, St Pete. As a point of reference the box was 33 x 46 x 26cms and 5.7kgs. Our price calculator shows that @ £65 (no VAT as outside the EU). Not bad I thought.......

The DPD system (in the UK) does not accept the Cyrillic alphabet (it throws an error when we tried), so we transliterated it into English. Invoices were in Russian to speed local customs clearance.

It was collected today, so I will track it and see how long it takes it to get there, clear customs and be delivered. Site estimate says 5-8 days.

Well that was a pile of bollocks.

A week or so ago the customer started screaming non-receipt. We looked into it and it was held at customs in Moscow. DPD in the UK were useless; said they couldn't access the data. Wifey phones the Moscow office, they denied even having it.  :-\

A bunch of phone calls later, they claimed they had no recipient internal passport data, but it was on the invoices attached so that was crap. Then they claimed there was no sender VAT/EORI number, which was also crap. Then it suddenly got discharged and returned to sender for unspecified reasons. We got it back today unmolested.

So it seems DPD does not work to Russia despite what they say. My bet is DPD are not greasing the right palms in Russia.  :coffeeread:

We'll split it up and send in a few smaller parcels a few days apart each by the good old untracked Royal Mail method: All in Russian with a CN22 attached, marked "gift" showing a 500pyb value. Stuff arrives that way.
Read a trip report from North Korea >>here<< - Read a trip report from South Korea, China and Hong Kong >>here<<

Look what the American media makes some people believe:
Putin often threatens to strike US with nuclear weapons.

Offline Gipsy

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #130 on: September 21, 2016, 12:44:14 PM »
We have a domestic DPD business account. They are awesome in the UK, and pretty slick within the EU and Eastern Europe (Czech, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, etc).

So when our DPD rep visited recently, I asked him about Russia. Surprisingly, he said Russia was a big market they hoped to expand into, and they go there already. You need a company reg number or an internal passport number to send there, and five copies of the invoice. No biggie.

He enabled our account to send to Russia. For those who do not have an account, you can access them via sites like parcelmonkey or parcel2go.

So today we had an order from Russia, St Pete. As a point of reference the box was 33 x 46 x 26cms and 5.7kgs. Our price calculator shows that @ £65 (no VAT as outside the EU). Not bad I thought.......

The DPD system (in the UK) does not accept the Cyrillic alphabet (it throws an error when we tried), so we transliterated it into English. Invoices were in Russian to speed local customs clearance.

It was collected today, so I will track it and see how long it takes it to get there, clear customs and be delivered. Site estimate says 5-8 days.

Well that was a pile of bollocks.

A week or so ago the customer started screaming non-receipt. We looked into it and it was held at customs in Moscow. DPD in the UK were useless; said they couldn't access the data. Wifey phones the Moscow office, they denied even having it.  :-\

A bunch of phone calls later, they claimed they had no recipient internal passport data, but it was on the invoices attached so that was crap. Then they claimed there was no sender VAT/EORI number, which was also crap. Then it suddenly got discharged and returned to sender for unspecified reasons. We got it back today unmolested.

So it seems DPD does not work to Russia despite what they say. My bet is DPD are not greasing the right palms in Russia.  :coffeeread:

We'll split it up and send in a few smaller parcels a few days apart each by the good old untracked Royal Mail method: All in Russian with a CN22 attached, marked "gift" showing a 500pyb value. Stuff arrives that way.

Anything which is sent to me from the UK is via Int signed for, it usually takes a couple of weeks and always arrives..
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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #131 on: September 21, 2016, 12:46:16 PM »
We have a domestic DPD business account. They are awesome in the UK, and pretty slick within the EU and Eastern Europe (Czech, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, etc).

So when our DPD rep visited recently, I asked him about Russia. Surprisingly, he said Russia was a big market they hoped to expand into, and they go there already. You need a company reg number or an internal passport number to send there, and five copies of the invoice. No biggie.

He enabled our account to send to Russia. For those who do not have an account, you can access them via sites like parcelmonkey or parcel2go.

So today we had an order from Russia, St Pete. As a point of reference the box was 33 x 46 x 26cms and 5.7kgs. Our price calculator shows that @ £65 (no VAT as outside the EU). Not bad I thought.......

The DPD system (in the UK) does not accept the Cyrillic alphabet (it throws an error when we tried), so we transliterated it into English. Invoices were in Russian to speed local customs clearance.

It was collected today, so I will track it and see how long it takes it to get there, clear customs and be delivered. Site estimate says 5-8 days.

My dpd package from latvia to nl took 5 business days. It arrived unharmed
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Offline Manny

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #132 on: September 21, 2016, 12:49:19 PM »
Yes, DPD works great all over the EU. Pretty fast UK - Estonia too. Clearly the issue here is at Russian customs.
Read a trip report from North Korea >>here<< - Read a trip report from South Korea, China and Hong Kong >>here<<

Look what the American media makes some people believe:
Putin often threatens to strike US with nuclear weapons.

Offline msmoby

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #133 on: September 22, 2016, 03:09:19 AM »


So it seems DPD does not work to Russia despite what they say. My bet is DPD are not greasing the right palms in Russia.  :coffeeread:

Therein you hit the nail ... the issue is within Russia ... WHY should a firm need to grease palms?

Sending anything other than docs from the UK to Russia is - sadly - fraught with issues ...If I want to get hardware in I send it via Cyprus .... no issues
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Offline Manny

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Re: Sending Items by Mail to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (FSU)
« Reply #134 on: November 09, 2017, 04:46:14 PM »


So it seems DPD does not work to Russia despite what they say. My bet is DPD are not greasing the right palms in Russia.  :coffeeread:

Therein you hit the nail ... the issue is within Russia ... WHY should a firm need to grease palms?

Because it's how it works.

Amazon didn't grease palms, everything got held up, now they do.

eBay "Global delivery" works OK to Russia, so they must grease someone.

Perhaps someone should grease someones palm in Canada. The customs/mail there is tragic. Even Royal Mail have delay advisories on their website about it. I'm so sick of refunding Canadians for non-delivery that I have blocked shipping there on all sites today.

Yet I had an untracked RM parcel delivered from Manchester - Minsk in 5 days recently. Go figure.....
Read a trip report from North Korea >>here<< - Read a trip report from South Korea, China and Hong Kong >>here<<

Look what the American media makes some people believe:
Putin often threatens to strike US with nuclear weapons.