Something to keep in mind during this period is that overseas shipping, at least Europe to North America, is apparently restricted to ground/water, i.e. actual ships, not air. I just placed an order that will take at least 4-6 weeks.

We are continuously shipping to the US and have not found this at all. Air freight is open.

We are continuing to ship using DHL via air

We are continuing to ship using Royal Mail/ USPS via air

from their site today
"Most major export routes remain open and we continue to accept and process mail. Specifically, Royal Mail’s international services to the USA remain operational. "

Regards


Tod

Interesting, maybe it's just continental Europe.

I would check before ordering.

Most of the international restrictions affect travel, rather than shipping. I think by far the bigger factor in orders being delayed will be the acute shortage of staff at every step of the process - fewer people will take longer to do the same amount of work, simple as that.

FWIW
I’ve received a shipment from Germany in the last week with another one inbound and due to be delivered tomorrow according to USPS. Shipment for the 2nd package took a little longer than the previous one as it’s now been 10 days since the shipment was posted.

On the other hand Lorifactor told me that the Polish post has stopped all international shipments and if I placed an order it would have to go via UPS and would cost about 3 times what it normally should be.

Yeah, I didn't want to single them out unnecessarily, but my experience was with Poland. Unfortunately that's where some of the best international smiths are located these days. Still worth the wait, but I wish I had known before.

Just received two shipping from SBG forumites residential in the USA; no problems. Both took around 7-10 days shipping time including air travel, but a rather long period in our customs labyrinth...

Crap. 50 days and still no word on the Polish sword.

Having troubles with USPS too; I've got an 18 day-old shipment coming from Texas that went off the radar two weeks ago. No idea where it is.

The vast majority of air mail is sent via passenger planes. 96% of passenger flights have been grounded so couriers have to wait for a flight to become available before they can send anything. On top of that, we are sending more parcels now than ever before. In some areas, the number of parcel deliveries has more than doubled since the instigation of travel restrictions. On top of that, mail processors and customs officials have to deal with all this with less personnel because of social distancing requirements and staff quarantines. There are backlogs and bottlenecks all over the place. I have overseas orders that I placed in February that are just arriving now.

Without EMS running, it has become a major problem for us to ship RSW or sharp swords to overseas. :(

Depends on which country you are ordering from. I have bought four swords from late March to early May from Outfit4events.com which is located in the Czech Republic and each sword was sent and arrived to my home within a week. That company ships through Fedex.

Tod,

I'm glad to hear your shipping is working well. I have some money that is going to be used to buy some of your most excellent daggers I think.

RPM

Now over 8 weeks, and my Polish sword hasn't shown up this side of the Atlantic. But at least there's a reason for that.

I'm more worried about the sword I bought from USA. After leaving the post-office its been 'in transit to next facility' for more than three weeks. That's one heck of a slow truck. I think its time to inquire, no?

I know there are far more important things going on in the world right now, but when you see your retirement investments tank, and then buy some stuff to feel better, this is a downer.

A recent package sent by Canada post from and to a Canadian address took 10 days to arrive at my home and the tracking didn't update for a week. Ordered from RELIK's in Canada in Ontario to Montreal, and usually I get what I order from RELIK'S 2 days after I order, their getting the product shipped was as fast and reliably as usual as it was shipped the day after I ordered on-line ..... I can recommend them for great customer service by the way .... :D )

Canada Post was in the News and they said that the volume of packages they are handling is of record number and even greater than the annual Xmas rush of packages. My local postman told me the same thing when he delivered my package that he was overwhelmed with the volume of packages he has to deliver every day.

I imagine that shipping can always go terribly wrong, but I assume that all shippers are having the same issues, probably even worse when delays in customs clearance and issues in foreign countries may be very variable in delays ?

Reasons for concern I would say yes, but not a reason to panic " YET ", still frustrating if what one is waiting for is rare and valuable.