From China to the UK, via The Netherlands?

[Kayos]

I ordered some stuff from China and received the "its in your country" email, you know the one that means you may or may not receive your item in the next 3 weeks

Anyway, clicked the tracking info and its in the Netherlands, however Parcel Force now say it is awaiting export, again

Is this now normal?

Im in no rush for it, I just found it a tad strange

 

[Gragson]

I ordered something from Spain early December and that went to NL before reaching England.
Might have something to do with Rotterdam, gigantic container port!

 

[Blobber]

I ordered something from Spain early December and that went to NL before reaching England.
Might have something to do with Rotterdam, gigantic container port!

Or perhaps getting anything through France is a pain now they have a sulk on?!

 

[Kayos]

Or perhaps getting anything through France is a pain now they have a sulk on?!

Thats a good point, through work we had 2 containers full of kit stuck in France due to "additional checks"

In my case though stuff from China normally comes direct to the UK

 

[Dutch Welder]

Amazon has a large parcel hub in the city where I live, as well.
And I see a lot of containers etc being hauled there, as there are canals running from Rotterdam to the nearest inland containerport (Veghel) but not to the city I live in
So probably they unload them in Rotterdam and ship them on either by truck or smaller boats.

 

[m_c]

As it's something non-critical, I'm guessing it'll be coming via one of the cheaper air services, which essentially rely on filling surplus flight/freight capacity. So it's cheaper to move stuff to central Europe using surplus plane capacity then truck it to the final destination, rather than wait/pay for capacity on a direct flight.

Speed probably won't improve until there's more passenger flights, as that's one of the things that's crippled cheap and fast delivery from China.

 

[Fred Trevvett]

As it's something non-critical, I'm guessing it'll be coming via one of the cheaper air services, which essentially rely on filling surplus flight/freight capacity. So it's cheaper to move stuff to central Europe using surplus plane capacity then truck it to the final destination, rather than wait/pay for capacity on a direct flight.

This. I had an urgent shipment the other day and the DHL global forwarding guy (not DHL express) said air freighting it to Europe, then trucking it was far cheaper. Also, even if you wanted to bring it direct to the UK you need to book it about 3 weeks in advance because all the flights are full