How To Speed Up & Track Your Foreign Deliveries Easily

This works with shipments using a local post office for delivery, such as USPS, Canada Post, etc. With couriers, the customs processing is automatic and this hack won’t help with that.

If you’re purchasing gear from abroad and using the local post office for shipping, here’s a quick tip how you can shave day or two of the delivery time. For example, Durston Gear uses Canada Post to ship their parcels (unless it’s shipped by Kaviso, the US distributor for X-mids, X-mid Solids and Kakwa 40). When the item is shipped, you’ll receive a tracking number, which is something like this XX1234567CA for example. If you click the tracking link in the shipper’s email, it’ll take you to the shipper’s country’s post office page.

However, this code also works for with Royal Mail website. Initially you might only see “Sender has dispatched the item” only for awhile, but more tracking data starts to update, once the parcel arrives at the border. Once the parcel arrives as the customs, if it’s over a certain value, it’s liable for VAT and sometimes duty as well. The VAT, duties and processing fees are calculated and sometimes you’ll receive an email, if the seller has supplied it, with an invoice which, once paid, releases the parcel from customs. Quite often you’ll get a red notice card with a code and information about how to pay the invoice. This usually takes couple of days to arrive.

If you check the tracking code on Royal Mail website and see that it’s in the customs, you can skip the wait by going directly to the page Pay a fee put in the tracking code and usually the invoice is already waiting for payment. You can now pay the invoice and the parcel will be released from customs almost immediately and you’ll save 1-2 days of waiting time.

I use an app called Parcel which has a desktop and mobile app to track multiple deliveries at the same time and it’ll also notify when the parcel is out for delivery. One neat feature in the app is that it will offer to switch the carrier if it detects the carrier has changed. For example when the parcel arrives to UK border, the app lets you know and you can start tracking the Royal Mail updates. Even if you don’t switch the carrier, you’ll still get the updates, but it’s often less detailed and with a bit of a delay.

Please note that some Aliexpress tracking numbers look like Royal Mail tracking numbers, but they aren’t. If you receive such a tracking number with your Aliexpress order, always select Cainao (Aliexpress) Shipping as the carrier. You can pretty much always put Cainao as the carrier when ordering from Aliexpress.

If you want to know how to same some money when online shopping from USA, check out this guide!