EMS express and the Greek postal service joined forces.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Well I just got in the Greek postal service to track down one package, and I just noticed a banner about this new cooperation.

The packed it was tracked up to Greece by the international EMS system,
and now I can see the rest of the progress tracked by the Greek EMS department.   
To my surprise my package is market as extreme urgent !! LOL 

Eat my socks UPS and other thieves !! 
They was forcing even small packets of no value to pass from customs clearance , and they was using freelancers customs clearance agents,
that was requesting 50 Euros as fee, plus the rest expenses. 

[RCMR]

Yes, EMS is much better than UPS, DHL FedEx and others who will *always* hand your consignment to Customs.

Why do the others do this?

Because (at least here in NZ) they can then charge you additional fees for handling the Customs clearance process.

Packages sent by EMS come through with the regular mail so aren't often inspected by Customs.  In fact, I have never had a package held by Customs when it's been sent by EMS.

What's more, because EMS effectively sidesteps the scrutiny of Customs, the total delivery time is often much less than those more expensive "express" services.  The last package I had sent by FedEx took two weeks to come from China.  An package sent by EMS from China on the same day arrived in 3 days.  The EMS package cost $21 in freight, the FedEx one (same size) cost $45.

Another bonus of EMS is that they will deliver to a post-office box, none of the others will do that so someone has to be here to sign for the consignment (which is a pain) or I simply get a card and have to travel an hour and a half (round trip) to their nearest depot to pick up my package.

I only use the other carriers if there is absolutely no option.

[alm]

I don't really care for EMS. Normal priority mail is just as fast and reliable in my experience. It's cheaper, and even less likely to be picked up by customs. The net result is that it's often faster since customs can easily take 1+ week if they hold the package. Clearance fees for EMS are also higher compared to regular mail. If reliability is an issue, EMS might be preferable since I believe you can collect insurance if you're persistent and jump through enough hoops.

Note that this will vary by location. I believe Italy has a very slow and unreliable mail system (both Italians and people shipping to Italy seem to be complaining), so in that case EMS might be an improvement (if it's actually any better).

If time is critical, I would choose an actual courier service like UPS or FedEx. They're expensive, and collecting deliveries if nobody was home is a pain, but I'm usually quite impressed with the speed, and customs clearance rarely delays a shipment.

[Mechatrommer]

intl shipment to my place here? normal post = terrible (>1month or lost), UPS/DHL = very good but expensive (<=1 week), EMS = good (>=1week), and very good for money! and i dont care if they are join force with our postoffice, they are still good.

[Achilles]

Yeah I have the same experience like Mechatrommer....
If I need sth. fast I take DHL. Then it usually takes 3-4days (working days) from china or the US to my door.
EMS is more than a week, but if it isn't urgent I take that because some people (in China) have ridiculous charges if you use DHL or UPS or Fed Ex.
EMS is free and UPS is plus 120USD....yeah, sure......for a f*in battery....
UPS may be fine, but it's more sth. for Departments, Companies or Housewives. "Can you tell me when the Parcel will be delivered. An estimation would be fine" ..."Yes sure, between 9a.m. and 5 p.m."
Great, nothing better to do than sitting at home and waiting for UPS. If I am not at home I have to drive and get it or agree another day to wait the whole day.....
DHL is fine. If I am not home, they give me a note and I can pick it up at my local Post office next day (UPS and Fed Ex is in another city here.....not that nice).
My worst experience was with Royal Mail International. I bought some stuff and it was used three times and three times nothing arrived. After over a week I got an email from the seller that the parcel has been returned because nobody was at home. I don't know who is their partner here, but I got no note and how shall I know where the parcel is at the moment (tracking stops at the british border). So they screwed several chances ......

[Mechatrommer]

among UPS,DHL,FedEx i will say UPS is the best. USPS is on par or little longer time (2weeks) compared with China EMS, but they got many names which confused me, same as China post (priority, express, flat/min/max? parcel etc, i dont know). anything that doesnt have tracking number, i'll consider it as "normal post".

[Kiriakos-GR]

USPS was great until May of 2009, after that they started to loose speed, due their attempts to do savings on the fuels.
The  6-7 seven days delivery become 11-14 at my end.
 
Not to say that they cut down their speed and boosted up by 30-40% the shipping cost.
And another stupid policy of them was to impose at the American sellers ( plus ebay) even higher pricing about the international packages, and they deliberately hide the less overpriced flat rate boxes.

They are nut cases..   

[Mechatrommer]

Not to say that they cut down their speed and boosted up by 30-40% the shipping cost.

yes i remember that. the price increase is very noticable. but the service performance is still the same, or a lil bit slower.