I am leaving from China, how to ship my personal items back to home country?

Posted onFebruary 20, 2020February 20, 2020Authorchinapostvolunteer

Many people who are leaving from China to their home country might face a question: How to ship their personal or commercial items from China to their home country?

As airline check-in luggage has very strict weight limitation, many people choose China Post surface parcel (tracking number starting with CP) to send their personal items to home country instead of packing them into the check-in luggage. Is this a good idea?

The answer is Yes and No.

If your personal items are simply some low value clothes and books, not urgently needed, and make sure they are not very important to you if lost, then the answer is yes. China post surface parcel is the cheapest way to send personal item from China to oversea countries.

In all other situations , the answer is No. There reasons are as following:
1)China Post surface parcel is very very slow, normally it will travel 3 to 6 months to reach destination country because it goes through sea.

2)China Post surface parcel is not that reliable. It has more than 1% lost rate, also it has another 1% return rate.
Based on our user reports, many parcel returns are caused by airport safety check point. Parcel with battery, liquid, magnet ,chemical inside might be rejected by safety check point. Some people also reported that their parcels were rejected just because it has electronics , watches which has no battery but looks like having battery.

Many returns are also made by destination country’s post office. In some countries, including Germany, Philippines, Malaysia, UAE,Saudi Arabia etc, Local Post office will return parcel to China if receiver is not at home and/or not pickup the parcel from local post office.

What will happen if parcel was returned back to China?
Normally parcel will be returned to original post office which shipper sent the parcel from. If shipper does not pickup the return parcel within free storage time(normally one month), China Post will discard the parcel. So if you have left China, parcel return is equal to parcel lost.

Conclusion:
If you are returning from China to your home country, try to pack all the personal items into your check-in luggages and bring them with you.

If you have too many items to put inside check-in luggages, at least pack the most valuable and important item into your airline check-in luggage. Even if you need pay some over-weight penalty, it is better than lost them forever.

For those heavy but low value things such as clothes, books etc, you can pack them into a box and ship them back with China Post surface parcel. Clothes and books normally will pass safety check and have little chance to be rejected by airport. You also need to check your parcel status everyday and make sure there is someone in your address to accept the parcel upon arrival.

Hope above information is useful to you.