COVID-19 Shipping Arrangement

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the fact that I didn't handle the whole logistic issue properly. There are many little things that I could have done to smoothen the process, such as promptly announcing shipping arrangement for affected parties, making explanations on the delays (which is what this write up will mainly be about) and other little details that will ease our customers' concerns. Hopefully, with this write up, most of your concerns will be lifted.

So why the delays?

Let me do a Q&A section here to answer some of the more popular questions I've been asked these days.

Q: Why is my order delayed?
A: First of all, the postal service you've paid for is HK post's standard shipping service.

Then, COVID-19, the pandemic is affecting worldwide logistic traffic, hence our local postal service is affected. Only a handful of regions are open for posting at the moment, if you are interested which regions are in service, please kindly refer to https://www.hongkongpost.hk/en/about_us/whats_new/notices/index_id_942.html.

Q: Some customers have been asking, why is it that the parcel cannot go through to their region when their local postal service is perfectly fine?
A: It doesn't matter whether your local postal service is working or not, because its HK Post's discretion to decide whether they want to open the service for that region. It is also not at our power to interfere local postal service's decision on whether they want to reopen their service towards a specific region. The only thing I can do is either wait until they reopen the service or find an alternative shipping method in an attempt to replace this.

The reason why they are not opening the service to certain regions, I could only make an educated guess. Since HK is a very busy international port both airborne and seaborne, trillions of parcels are going through all kinds of courier services daily. Due to COVID-19 affecting the logistic traffic, airlines have been cut down. With less resources for airmail services, and that most of the available resources have been reserved for higher priority shipment such as EMS, economic express courier services. HK Post can only shut down certain regions' services until they consider the resources for airmailing is back to an acceptable level.

Q: Why is it that some of my fellows have received their order when you say my region is not available for posting?
A: There are several possible cases.

They bought it from aftermarket.

They bought it through a local proxy during the GB phase.

They opted in for shipment upgrade (express shipping).

Q: When will the alternative shipping method be available?
A: We are still negotiating with the courier center. Hopefully soon.

Q: Why is it taking that long to find an alternative shipping method?
A: The shipping fee you've paid for is for local postal service, it was the most economical option. To find a service that could compare to it in this period when all the courier center is craving for a spot in a plane is very difficult. Also, to fully understand if the service is worthwhile, I need to experiment it by sending different test parcels to US to test whether the fulfillment date is up to standard, whether the parcel is delivered safe and sound. These measurements must be taken because it is the top priority to make sure your order is well taken care of. I must apologize that I do not have the capability to make this process faster, nor I could find the right one just in a blink of an eye, I could only bust my ass to keep on trying hard to find a suitable one so we could send out the parcel ASAP.

Q: Why is it that orders from KBDfans are shipping and you cannot?
A:

With regard to postal service, China ≠ Hong Kong, they are independent from each other.

KBDfans has waaaay larger logistic volume than us, thus they could secure a better business discount rate with their logistic partner - most of the time you're paying Fedex/DHL/UPS service if they're shipping from China.

KBDfans has a US warehouse whereas we don't.

The shipping arrangement for general public is that -

If airmail service is not available in the abovementioned site, your order(s) will not be able to get processed.
If your country/area/city is in service, please expect 3 - 5 business days of order processing as we need to congregate a batch of shipment and go to post office once to twice a week to minimize the chance of getting exposed to the enclosed and high density public area.
Express service is available for worldwide shipment, if you would like to upgrade your shipping method to express, please contact info@thicthock.com.
> Estimation for US parcel for 0.5kg item costs around 45USD per order. It will be fulfilled by DHL with full tracking and a fulfillment speed of 3 - 5 business days (sometimes less).
> Distant areas will have extra costs.

The Marshmallow shipping arrangement for US/CA orders is as follows -

You could combine orders with fellows who ordered near you, as long as the weight of order is not greater than 0.5kg, the upgrade of shipment service will be 45USD inclusive of the shipment you've already paid for US orders. I've specifically made a channel on Discord for this so you could communicate with the fellows to sort things out in a more orderly fashion.
A shipment upgrade with 45USD (starting from 0.5kg) inclusive of the shipment you've already paid, if you don’t want to combine orders.
Wait for an alternative shipping method, which will be sent off to all of the related parties via email when it is ready.
Wait until the local postal service reopens the service for the US/CA.

It is never our intention to slow down the order processing and postpone your paid items. But with what is going on right now, we could not do anything about it unless the pandemic is gone or the logistic intake for low priority shipment is reopen. Once everything is back to normal, we will go full speed processing orders.

We hope you all stay safe and be well. Thank you for your patience and understanding.