Hot Hot, like almost everyone else it seems, uses DHL for international shipping from China to the US. However, first there's a bit of internal shipping to get the machine from the warehouse to the airport. This was by a company called China Deppon Logistics (http://www.deppon.com). They're very impressive. The shipment was GPS tracked at all times, with updates automatically every hour if not more frequently. Are you listening to me UPS?

Once the crate reached the airport, it switch to DHL. I was somewhat concerned about how long it would take to clear Chinese customs. I'd recently had a bunch of PCBs stuck in customs for a week for no obvious reason. However, customs was quick and no additional fees appeared. Onwards to the US.

Once the crate arrived in the US, things slowed down a bit. The package went into customs and then just stopped. DHLs favorite status update was "Clearance event" which they added to the tracking information once a day. After sending email and eventually phoning them, I had the assigned import representative call me back. In order to clear customs they needed various pieces of information. Notably they wanted my social security number (no idea why) as well as a complete description of what was in the crate. The latter somewhat surprised me because I assumed the shipping manifest would have that information already; but it was easy to supply and not too much detail was necessary (I did include a link to the relevant web pages for the machine in case of questions). Unfortunately that information didn't make it to DHL until late Friday, so nothing happened until early that Monday when the machine was released by customs. Again, no additional fees or tariffs.

At this point it was still in Los Angeles. DHL moved it quickly to San Francisco and I expected it to be delivered Wednesday (and DHL called me to confirm this). However, once it reached San Francisco it just sat at the depot and didn't do anything. Again, more emails to DHL to work out what was going on. The national customer service seems a little less helpful. Initially I got various emails telling me, in essence, that they were glad I'd contacted them. But that was about it. It was now Friday, and after much nagging (and a few pushy tweets), they finally told me it was being delivered that day. This was despite the online status claiming it was still in the San Francisco depot for unspecified reasons. So I was skeptical, but it was indeed delivered that Friday.

So, total shipping time was about 2 weeks; or a week longer than promised. I'm happy enough with that but it pays to keep a close eye on the importing process otherwise I suspect it might drag on a while longer than it should.