Shipping to Singapore by SAL from HLJ
Ordered something from hobbylink japan for the first time. So I thought I’ll write up a little about the shipping, and hopefully somebody will find it useful.
Surface Air Lift (SAL) in my little knowledge, basically means airlift, but it’s not registered, and it has no priority. Basically it goes by Air, but will only be airlifted when a freighter has extra space, thus if you’re unlucky (but it’s unlikely), it’ll take forever. This is why it takes longer than EMS, which has priority. SAL is not registered either, hence you cannot track it, not good for shipping expensive stuff.
HLJ.com listed the price of SAL as 580 yen for my item, 1500 yen for EMS. This is just an estimate.
In the end, shipping two copies of a small book cost me 800 yen. (It’s cheaper if you ship to Asia, and if you ship multiple items at one go). I expected it to be much cheaper actually, but I guess it’s because I only placedtwo items together.
In the end, it arrived at my house 9-10 days after HLJ stated it as shipped, right inside my postbox. (not sure what will happen if it does not fit)
Anyway, it came through fine. That’s the packaging from the front
More pictures of the packaging from the back
That’s how it was packed inside. 2 books side by side, wrapped in plastic, but not vacuum sealed.
I was quite relief, since the HLJ website listed SAL shipping as 8-45 days, and they expect you to wait for double that if the parcel doesn’t arrive.
Looks like SAL is quite a viable option if you stay in Singapore.
I’ll be shipping a few figurines in december/january, i’ll post more when that happens.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hmm wouldn’t it be cheaper if you get figures from China Square Central instead?
October 20th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Hmmm.. Cheaper definitely, but they don’t always have everything.
And the price is still approximately equal to those in sunshine plaza. Anyway… we’ll see… at least HLJ lets you cancel easily as long as it’s not in the midst of shipping.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:28 am
If it doesn’t fit into your postbox, the postoffice will send a courier to directly bring it to your door. If nobody is around to receive the package, the courier will leave a notice at your doorstep. Bring the notice along with your I.C. to the stated Post Office and collect it yourself.
I regularly ship stuff from overseas due to my Model Kit hobby, and SAL is relatively safe. Generally speaking, the average waiting time is 2 weeks. The longest I ever spent waiting was 6mths, and that was when I bought something from Mexico( I know a comic artist from there, and got some stuff from her).
Cheers.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:49 am
Man, 10 days SAL via HLJ is a pipe dream for us folks on the East Coast!
And yea, HLJ is pretty good. I do wish they would update their stock faster when new releases are announced, but overall they’ve been good to me. It’s also very sad how I know their major shipping days, so I can guess when items I’ve ordered go out. (Wednesdays and Fridays are the answer, btw)
October 20th, 2006 at 1:05 am
It takes 20-30 days for New York. 10 days..so lucky >_
October 20th, 2006 at 2:06 am
10 days! My packages from HLJ take at least 2-3 weeks. Only way to get it faster is via EMS.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Yeah you’ll use SAL.. until they fuck up and take 3 months for one package. My Dark Saber and Ichigo Waitresses just arrived and they gave me 3 months of stress. I blame the Singapore postal service for overzealous checking during iMF.
Remember that because you cannot track SAL, nobody gives a shit when you claim to not have received it. And why are you ordering SR treasure files when they can be purchased at Kino?
October 20th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Haha. Thanks for all the information. Would have been more reassuring if I knew all these before placing my purchases.
@tj han That’s the pleasure files, the treasure files have been long out of print. Anyway, when i ordered, kino didn’t have them yet. (admittedly I ended up getting them later). But hey, it was still cheaper by $6 per book. So yeah! good deal. haha.
I’ll probably use EMS for figurines? who knows.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
it is no longer stocked @ kino..
October 20th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Just make sure you do your calculations right. And perhaps get some ppl to share with you and split the cost =X