Shipping US Goodies via the LBC Shipping Cart

This is a sort of follow up post from my previous post regarding LBC Shipping Cart.

The problems I had in that post were already resolved by LBC Shipping Cart and I have moved on as well. I decided to write this post just to keep everyone on track of the progress of that box.

February 4, 2015 2:00pm

Another item was waiting for me when I checked my LBC Shipping Cart today. I moved that in my box then hit the Ship Now button. Yes. Today is the day that I am finally shipping this box to my PH address. After paying the shipping fee with my partner's BDO debit card, I checked my account and realized that once you shipped your box, you can no longer see what's inside it. What you will see under the My Shipments tab in your account is something like this:

Although I already have an Excel list for the items inside that box, I couldn't help but think that this might cause a bit of anxiety for people with no list of what's in their boxes. Of course, if you're shipping less than 5 items, it's easy to keep track of the stuff in your box. But if you're like me who shipped more than 10 items in one box, better keep a list of your box' contents or take a screenshot of your box' list in the LBC Shipping Cart site before proceeding to ship your box. 

(Edit: I got an email today, 2/06/2015, from LBC with a list of the items inside the shipped box.)

A few minutes later, LBC sent me an email letting me know that my box is on the way. The tracking number for my box is also included in that email. What's cool about their tracking system is that you can track your box while you're signed in in your shipping cart account and you can also track your box via the LBC Express site's tracking feature.

Tracked via LBC Express' site. Yes, James Taylor was my shipper.
Not sure if this is the singer with the same name. lol

Tracked via LBC Shipping Cart site

Btw, the posted ETA for this box is Feb 15. After shipping this box, I also sent Voltaire a text message to let him know that I finally shipped my box and that I was hoping for zero delays this time. Well, last week, he promised that he will make sure that my box will reach me without delays and I'm just making sure that he kept that promise. :p

February 7, 2015 2:00am

Sigh. No change in status since I shipped my box. I already sent Voltaire a message this afternoon about this and after asking for my box' tracking number, I haven't heard back from him again. Great. Hopefully we'll see some movement/updates by Monday.

To be continued...

UPDATES

February 11, 2015 1:20pm

The tracking status of my box was only updated last February 8, including 'Estimated Departure & Arrival' here in the Philippines. I also got a couple of text updates from Voltaire regarding the status of the box but he only repeated what was on the tracking status, but that's okay. 

Estimated arrival of my box at the Manila International Airport was yesterday, February 10. Today is February 11 and no further updates were posted in the tracking status. I was also told that until the box is released to LBC once its done with customs clearing and processing, I won't see any updates with the tracking status. 

February 12, 2015 9:39pm

After days of waiting for new tracking updates, I finally got a couple of them today when I tracked my box at their site. Thank God. I'm guessing that my box is with the local LBC team now.

February 13, 2015 4:00pm

Box finally arrived! The box arrived 2 days earlier than the given ETA and I couldn't be any happier. Everything in the box were in perfect condition. They were packed properly and the box that held the items was in good condition, too. I'm sorry I forgot to take a photo of the box since my daughter immediately took over upon the box' arrival. :D

Good job, LBC! 

Side note: I mentioned earlier that the contents of the box, my items, were in great condition when I got them. This is true. HOWEVER, I would have to mention something that I found rather, hmm, nakakainis when we were inspecting the items.

I'm not sure if this is an issue for some people, but for us and for the items we bought, it is an issue: 

Stickers or item tags that they attached on some of the items.

I understand why they did that. It's for tracking or storage purposes? The stickers they plastered on some of the items were attached AFTER wrapping the item in a clear plastic bag. 

BUT on some of my items, they were attached on the item's packaging/box itself. It wouldn't be such an issue if it was a small sticker because you can easily peel that off without damaging the box/packaging. But it's huge! Think 1/4 size of a bond paper. So imagine the trouble of having to carefully remove that huge sticker without damaging the box/packaging of your item. Also, even if you managed to remove the sticker on the packaging, good luck removing the sticky remnant that was left to your items' box.

I know some of you would ask: Why? Why is that an issue? Ang arte mo naman! Box lang naman yun. Tatapon mo din yun after.

Well, some people, like myself, buy things from the US that are not found here in the Philippines. We would buy an assortment of things from the US and some of those things are for our personal collections. Like toys, books, or whatever. Most collectors like me would shell hundreds or even thousands of $$$ for those items, luckily my items are not really worth that of a fortune. Anyway, since we collect things, everything about the item matters. Yes. Even the box/packaging. We don't really throw those away. Some would even leave the item in the packaging and not open them until who knows when. 

And that is the problem. I'm not sure if its common practice for forwarders to plaster tracking stickers on the items but since I saw that some of the items were wrapped in plastic before the stickers were attached to them, I'm wondering why they didn't do that for every single item?

 If anyone from LBC reads this blog, please don't do that. Don't attach stickers to our stuff. Please don't get lazy and kuripot because we're expecting better handling of our items when we ship them to you. If you really need to attach stickers to our items for proper tagging and storage, please do it AFTER wrapping the item in paper or plastic bags first. The stickers damages the packaging. While most don't care about packaging, I do. And I'm pretty sure some people out there do, too. 

Conclusion: Although I encountered some problems before with LBC Shipping Cart, which they were able to resolve as mentioned in my previous post, and if I would skip the 'sticker issue', I would have to say that my first experience with LBC Shipping Cart had been rather satisfactory. I would give them credit for trying hard to address my issues before and for helping me out up to the point of the box' delivery to my home. I really appreciate that. They are fairly new in this kind of consolidation/freight forwarding business and I have to admit that they actually excel in some of their offerings, there's a lot of room for improvement and I'm looking forward to seeing that as a customer. I've decided that I would have to retract the title from my previous post (although I'm not going to change it) and say that I'm glad I decided to try them. I'm going to stick with them for now. In fact, I already shipped another box today. Hopefully, transit and delivery would be just as smooth as my 1st box. :)