Korea Expat BLog

Post Office

EveryThing You Ever Wanted to Know About Korean Post Office
international Air Mail, Sending Parcels OverSeas, EMS Express Abroad
and Door-to-Door Courrier Service in South Korea

 

when did the Korean Post Office System become so efficient that, now casual on-Line traders who buy-and-sell things mighty frequently, choose Korea Post Registered Mail (and Parcel next-day-delivery) than the courrier service run by large conglomerates ? and how .

tune-in again, to a mighty series of extensive information Pages offered by Korea Expat BLog than a confusing array of daily I-went-where-and-ate-what’s
SPOILER ALERT
and here to come to the conclusion in the current psychological state of its citizens in Korean culture Post-Millennium .

 

 

rising from the ashes of a relatively shorter War time-lining between WWII and Vietnam, Korea went through a gruesome phase as early G.i’s would look back to tell . the most popular markets stacked with goodies smuggled from the U.S. Base where beginning gangster bought pistols and businessmen bought military rations for bribes .

all-the-while a tight military dictatorship held citizens to work and work, almost to tune of classic Utopian movies, which eventually led a nation to develop faster than those who enjoyed in a free-er World . and even when a series of related regimes was closing to an end, a sudden boost came in the form of real-estate development of land that was plain fields .

soon-after the government swung every each-way to topple this and after the bubble IMF came, a government office job even menial, came to be sought as the most steady . like the Post Office .

 

so a Korean Post Office clerk who has a steady income would not jeopardize the job to peak inside the (Pandora’s) box . more-so, with a good Eastern half the Korean Peninsula being mountainous, the spreading of Cable TV in the nineties bore popular Shopping Channels and add to the influx of internet over the Millennium linked countless on-Line Shopping Malls, that competition became fierce among courrier serivices that insuringly delivered all the next-day through this Peninsula and a large island South .

so while it is common a bulk of eBay Sellers will hesitate shipping to italy, Greece, israel and Russia, for it is known to their clerks eBay Buyers are protected by eBay and PayPal and may deem not a big deal to enact the Kansas shuffle .

 

[ POSTAL WEBSITES ]
Official Korea Post Website : is the name-plate of the national administration department, listing every activity they are responsible for .
http://www.koreapost.go.kr

Korea Post On-Line Operation Site : limited to, but still a wide array of business including mail, parcel, courrier, shopping and insurance .
http://www.epost.go.kr

 

[ KOREAN DOMESTIC MAIL AND PARCEL ]
Korea’s local Post Office is in direct competition with courrier services, a bulk of which are run by subsidiaries of large conglomerate company groups . but distinct differences .

Post Office rates are set . they come to pick up on time when reserved and deliver with surprising accuracy .

courrier companies give huge discount to bulk contractors like On-Line shopping malls – usually almost half of what normal consumers pay . but their pick-up and delivery is at the mercy of themselves . more-so if it is NOT run by larger conglomerates .

 

 

[ INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED MAIL, PARCEL AND EMS ]

try to send a package overseas, and Post Office clerks will immediately try to convince you to send EMS . same initials as with their counterparts in neighboring Japan and Hong Kong, it is comparable to in-between Priority Mail and Express Mail international in North America . meaning, it is cheaper, so faster for its price .

*prices here are those of those last updated February 3rd 2012, after which another price-hike was implemented August 1st 2013 NOT reflected here :

South Korea Post EMS. 1.1lb. 2.2lb . 3.3lb .. 4.4lb . 5.5lb . 6.6lb . 7.7lb
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 grams . 1kg. . 1.5kg. . 2kg. . 2.5kg . 3kg. . 3.5kg
Japan. . . . . . . . . USD $14 . . $15 . . $17 . . $20 . . $21 . . $22 . . $23
Asia & SouthEast. USD $15 . . $18 . . $20 . . $22 . . $24 . . $25 . . $26
Australia. . . . . . . USD $17 . . $22 . . $29 . . $36 . . $42 . . $44 . . $46
Europe & Canada USD $19 . . $25 . . $32 . . $40 . . $43 . . $46 . . $49
US Mainland. . . . USD $21 . . $29 . . $37 . . $46 . . $50 . . $53 . . $56

EMS usually arrives in 3 business days into SE/Asia,
4 to Australia/North America and 5 onto Western Europe .

EMS is trackable with a few hours delay, while it will take days to verify where-abouts of Registered Mail . EMS works in conjuction with the incoming or out-going country’s Post Office, so package while in either country is trackable at each respective country’s website .

 

[ POSTAL INSURANCE ]
the whole point of paying much more than your First Class variety in case things do go wrong . they have a separate desk for taking complaints and thus deliver EMS to only countries tried-and-tested :
http://service.epost.go.kr/iservice/ems/ems_eng.jsp

 

 

[ TYPES OF KOREAN BRICK-AND-MORTAR POST OFFICE ]
largely 3 types of post office throughout South Korea depending on their operating hours :

  • smaller Post Office Stations are at every neighborhood with limited tasks, largely without banking services – Yes Post-Modern Post Office has come to care for more than traditional mail and parcel-sending, for example they now even have their own discount cellular service !
  • your general Post Office is found at every ‘Dong’ or ‘Ku’, Korea’s hierarchy in designating geographic regions,
  • central Post Office in every larger cities are open Saturday mornings but only a dozen throughout South Korea,

 

[ POST OFFICE OPEN DAYS AND WORKING HOURS ]
WeekDays : from 9am until 6pm
Saturdays : from 9am until 1pm only at selective Post Offices below
– automated drop-boxes are open from 8am until 10pm daily –

[ POST OFFICE BANKING ]
business hours : 9am ~ 4:30 WeekDays,
ATM Teller Machines : 8:30am ~ 6pm daily,
365 Automated Booths : 7am ~ 11:30pm daily
–  with limited operation 5am ~ 4am,

 

[ POST OFFICES OPEN SATURDAYS ]
*January 2014 Update : as hard-working days under harsh military dictorship is long-over, ALL Post Office will be closed Saturdays AND Sundays from 2014 except for bulk postage – Updated below -_- thus adieu ~ to the good ol’days as Korean living statndard rise in epidome and workers get lazier ..
mostly 9am ~ 1pm and expect central ones to be packed nearing ending hours and not unusual to wait an hour or two ! ( geographically from West and clock-wise )

Seoul :

  • JoongAng (Central), that white modern building at the South-Western Entrance to the shopping mecca of MyeongDong,
    accessible via 3 subway lines and 4 stations :

    • Subway Line 4 MyeongDong Station Exit 5 (nearest) turn Right on the next HUGE block facing ShinSeGae Department Stores and the next block to your Right,
    • – also HweHyeon (NamDaeMun Market) Station Exit 7, go through ShinSeGae Department Store and cross the road through under-path,
    • Subway Line 2 EulJiRo Station Exit 6 and take a 10-minute stroll with Lotte Department Stores to your Right and MyeongDong Shopping District to your Left, until you reach the massive fountain in front of ShinSeGae Department Stores, and is on your Left,
    • same Line 2 or Subway Line 1 ShiChung (City Hall) Station Exit 6, hug Plaza Hotel to your Right and walk for a good 10 minutes until you reach the fountain mentioned above, then under-pass to cross the road diagonally,
  • YangCheon,
  • SeoCho/Yoido

metropolitan KyungGi :

  • NaminCheon (South inCheon),
  • GoYang/ilSan,
  • DongSuwon (East Suwon),
  • SungNam/BunDang

KangWon :

  • ChoonCheon

ChoongChung :

  • DaeJeon/DoonSan
  • ChungJoo

JeonRa :

  • JeonJu
  • GwangJu

KyungSang :

  • DaeGu
  • PoHang

Busan Area :

  • Busan
  • ChangWon

*January 2014 Amendment : only a handful of larger Post Office will be open Saturdays 9am ~ 1pm for bulk postage pre-registered – thus NO personal mail nor parcel, again starting geographically from West and clock-wise South : BuCheon, GoYang, EuiJungBu, Dong(East)-SEOUL, SungNam, Suwon, AnYang .

althernative to this is same-day delivery which also seems to be a phasing-out service . you register your parcel at the larger Ku-prefecture Post Office NOT the regional Dong-Post Office BEFORE 11am and it will be delivered to selective addresses around metropolitan SEOUL, meaning some within KyungGiDo . prices start at W6,000 as opposed to normal next-day delivery – except the Southern island of JeJu which takes another day or you pay W1000 more for the same day – starting at W4,000 (again W500-raised prices from 2014).

 

[ CONSERVE NATURE AND ECOLOGY ]
you can drop off your used cell phone as well as dead batteries at the Post Office and regional Dong Administration Office . there is supposed to be a box for you to drop-off these at these offices but I have seen them eventually removed because passers-by used them as garbage dumps . so simply hand them over to the teller clerk, who will look at you as a strange um Saint .

 

– Korea Expat BLog –

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