United States Postal Service Shipping Options

When you check out during the purchase process you will be offered one or more choices for shipping, based on the weight of your packaged purchases and the shipping destination, as determined by the U.S. zip code or country that you enter.

The domestic United States shipping options offered are:

• First-Class Mail
• Priority Mail (only offered during holiday season)

The international shipping options offered are:

• First-Class Mail international
• Express Mail International (EMS)

The following tables summarize the differences among the shipping options.

Domestic USPS Shipping

International USPS Shipping

*As of March 2009. For general reference purposes only. Postage rates, packaging weight, and handling charges may change from time to time.

Tracking

When we schedule your package for mailing we will send you a tracking number, and if you are registered at Kendama.net, you can log in to see your tracking number. If you ordered as an unregistered guest you can input your tracking number at the USPS Track & Confirm page, or you can simply paste the tracking number into Google and search for it (Google can recognize USPS tracking numbers).

Note: The USPS's online tracking records are sloppy. The first entry will be made by our postage machine, and indicates that we have printed the postage, The date of this entry will be the date of mailing or one day before the date of mailing (sometimes the following Monday for weekend orders). After that, the USPS is not required to scan the package and update the tracking information until delivery. This is because technically the USPS "tracking" is only for delivery confirmation. En route the USPS is not obligated to scan the package and enter intermediate waypoints, but they will occasionally do this. Upon delivery or attempted delivery, the USPS is supposed to scan the package and update the online tracking records. They frequently do not do this. In addition, sometimes they will bulk pre-scan packages at the post office and then not take them out for delivery on the day they scanned them. They are not supposed to do this, but in some cases they do.

So the upshot is that the USPS online tracking records are not completely reliable. In many cases customers receive their package and yet no tracking record entry has been posted since the initial postage machine entry. If you live in Canada or another international location, the tracking records become even more unreliable.

Kendama.net periodically reevaluates our shipping options, but for packages that weigh under a pound, which most kendama shipments do, the cost of UPS, FedEx, and DHL are just too expensive for our customers.

Reshipment of Unclaimed Packages

Note: The United States Postal Service will make a single delivery attempt, and leave a notice if you are not around to get the package. In practice, the notice often "disappears" without a trace. It is important for you to keep an eye on the USPS tracking page. You will be e-mailed a shipping notice that contains a tracking number when your order is shipped, but the best thing to do is to not order as a guest, but rather to register with the site and order as a member so that you will have a member page. From that page you will be able to access a link to tracking information for your shipment. As a registered customer you will be able to notice when a delivery has been attempted and be able to contact the post office for a redelivery, preventing packages from being returned to us. If the tracking information on the USPS site clearly notes that delivery has been attempted, but the package is later returned to us as unclaimed, we will unfortunately have to charge you for the postage required to reship the package.

Express Mail offers full-blown online tracking.

For First Class Mail and Priority Mail tracking only offers online evidence that we have printed postage from our postage printer, not notice that we have actually delivered the package to the post office. In general we mail packages the day we receive orders or the day after. First Class Mail and Priority Mail tracking also shows delivery, but the system is usually updated after the customer has already received the package, so that is not very useful. Neither First Class Mail nor Priority Mail is scanned at intermediate points like UPS, FedEx and DHL packages are, so you cannot use online tracking to follow your package's progress across the country. For that you need to pay for Express Mail.

For international orders, depending on the country, delivery may not be reported by any tracking method.

Other Shipping Options?

We use USPS because for shipments under about 1 pound (or about 0.5 kg), USPS is much less expensive than UPS, FedEx or DHL. For a relatively inexpensive purchase such as a kendama, this is important. However, the tracking for USPS is not as detailed as that of the private shippers.

International Orders

We reserve the right to decline certain international orders and refund payment based on our evaluation of risk factors that may from time to time change.