You are probably about to order something from China and wonder what “ePacket” is all about. Well it’s another shipping service, yet it’s special in many ways. If you live in the USA, you are especially lucky since the ePacket program is a mutual agreement with the USA and China that mostly benefits American consumers.

What is an ePacket?

The ePacket program is a trilateral agreement with the U.S. Postal Service, the China Post and the Hong Kong Post. The ePacket service helps e-commerce merchants in Hong Kong and China to reach the consumer markets in the United States. The ePacket shipping solution offers inexpensive shipping that includes tracking and delivery confirmation via the postal service network for lightweight goods under 4.4lbs or less. The ePacket agreement was signed in April of 2011.

What are the benefits?

There is a variety of benefits for buyers and sellers under the ePacket program.

Sellers

• Chinese based sellers ship a 1lb package from China to any address in the U.S. via ePacket for under $4.00 incl. delivery confirmation and tracking. 

Buyers

• Free returns on any undeliverable items
• ‍Door-to-door tracking
• ‍Custom clearance
• ‍A 4-9-day overseas shipping time
• Incredibly cheap shipping cost on small items. For example, this iPhone case cost $3.21 incl. ePacket shipping 

There are clearly more benefits for American buyers. However, for many U.S. Sellers ePackets are not as beneficial as for China based sellers as a Washington Post article describes.

What is the delivery time for ePackets?

The delivery time for ePackets is on average 8 – 20 Days if you live in the United States. One guy on the internet was able to get his package delivered within 4 days from China to New York.

‍

How do I find sellers that offer ePackets on AliExpress?

There are two options, you could visit Peeksy since 90% of the sellers featured on Peeksy do offer ePacket shipping and have at lest a 4.5 Star rating. Another option is to go to AliExpress, and manually see if sellers do offer ePacket as a shipping method as shown below.

‍

Where can I track my ePacket?

 There is a variety of websites where you can track your ePacket. We recommend to use the official websites that provide the services such as USPS and China Post. Other options include 17Track, AfterShip or PackageTrackr.

‍