Parcel Delivery India to China via China Post (EMS)

 

When your family sends you a parcel from India, it may not be a straight forward process to receive it.

Once the parcel arrives in Beijing you will get a notification on your phone (via SMS)to set up an EMS Account via WeChat. You need to sign up with your passport number and upload the invoice of the items being received.

Our invoice was rejected and we were asked to go to the local post office to submit the invoice. You will also need to submit a copy of your passport and sign a declaration there.

 After review we got to know the invoice was still not accepted because it was not an itemized bill of the price of same items in China. After a lot of back and forth with customer care we managed to get them to send the parcel to the Customs Office in Jianguomen.

After about a week I got a formal letter saying my parcel was at the Customs office and I could go there to receive it. The process then on was very smooth.

The office is open from 10am to 4pm on weekdays, I went after lunch hour. There was hardly any waiting. After submitting my form with parcel number and passport copy I was called in and asked simple questions such as price and contents of package. They asked me to open up the box. After a quick look, they allowed me to take it away.

Tips:

•        Ensure you have help to set up the EMS account online , everything is in Chinese.
•         Call English customer care instead of Chinese which speeds up the process. The phone number is 11183, Option #8 . Staff is very helpful.
•         When you notice there is no progress with your parcel and if it shows under Customs review for way too long, just ask them to forward it to the Customs office. Reason being the local post office just keeps it with them until further communication from our end. We lost lot of time just waiting thinking it would get cleared.
•         The customs office process was quick and smooth.
•         Carry copies of passport along with original and Invoice if available of the items.
•         The actual parcel delivered to Beijing within 2 weeks (from Kerala)
•         We received our parcel after 45 days, which would have been faster if I had asked them to route the package to Customs office as soon as our invoice was rejected online.