Quote from ChinaShipper on October 13, 2015, 16:33
Hi Shadowspar, have you noticed a change on USPS tracking since October 1st, for incoming China Post Registered shipments?

I'm actually having a hard time finding US bound registered mail tracking numbers on a quick sift through the forum right now, but the one I did find showed absolutely nothing in USPS track: no "tracking not available for this item" message, just... blank. If you want you can see about digging through the Canada / US forum; maybe you will have better luck than I did in the little time I had to check today.

Quote from ChinaShipper on October 14, 2015, 12:03
I JUST found one:

RJ604019905CN
China Post shows it departing China customs warehouse on Oct 12th
USPS shows it "origin post is preparing shipment"

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it will stay that way and never get updated. It does tell you one thing, though: the USPS has received electronic notification from China Post that the item is coming. If they have no idea that the item exists at all, it'll say "not found". Try RI123456785CN and see the difference.

I know that China Post is telling shippers in China that they "don't really need tracking in the destination country" ... I'm pretty sure that nearly all buyers in the US and Canada want tracking. It may not matter so much on a cheap $3 watch, but on a $50 pair of shoes I would want tracking.

YESSSS. I wrote up a little blurb on my personal blog about how nowadays people seem incredulous when they find out that the physical world doesn't move as fast as the online one. Many people in the US and Canada don't seem very conscious of how far away China actually is, or what kind of logistical challengers are involved to get things from here to there or vice versa.

Also, I think it doesn't help that most people in the US and Canada have had their expectations set by getting things via domestic courier. Packages generally arrive in five business days, are scanned every time they move, and the shipping cost is often hidden as online sites try to compete with brick-and-mortar stores.

This could be a big problem for Chinese shippers, since they will have no "delivered" scan. Also a fraud issue as well-what's to keep the buyer from claiming they didn't get the package?

Yes, indeed. As I understand it, Registered Mail is supposed to be a service with mandatory delivery confirmation -- it may not be trackable in real time, but there has to be some way for the sender to confirm the item was delivered. Unfortunately, this way might be something that's not very useful nowadays, like China Post sending an enquiry to USPS, and getting you back a "delivery confirmation" certificate six months later. I have to go back to the UPU Acts and see if I can find out what the international standards for Registered Mail are supposed to require, but if you can find someone in the know at China Post, they should be able to tell you how to confirm delivery, if that is possible.