Coronavirus COVID-19 - Impact on international Shipping

Update: March 25, 2020

Shipping delays to specific destinations

Most of the packages going to Europe and Asia travel through a hub in China. Given that the vast majority of flights have been canceled, all carriers are taking appropriate measures to redirect all flights to different hubs. The situation is as follows:
- Delivery to China Hubei province is entirely suspended.
- Delivery to other areas in China is significantly delayed.
- Delivery to Hong Kong and Macao will suffer slight delays.
- Delivery to Europe may suffer slight delays in some cases (unlikely for the vast majority of our shipments)
- No impact for deliveries to North America, South America, Africa and Oceania.

Sanitary risks of products originating from Japan

The coronavirus is transmitted by one person to another in respiratory droplets. That means the virus can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes and releases these droplets into the air, where they are either inhaled by others, or can land on other people’s mouths or noses if they’re near enough—generally at a distance of about six feet (1.8 meters).

As things stand at the moment, it is considered that touching infected surfaces isn’t a major source of transmission, but transmission is possible.
However, given that our packages have a lead time of 3 to 7 days for delivery and that packages are subject to temperature, pressure and hygrometry variations during transportation (especially in cargo) surface transmission in these conditions is considered extremely unlikely.

The number of cases in the general population (outside of the confined boat case) stays very low in Japan. Our team is proceeding very carefully and the vast majority of our staff don't have to travel on crowded trains often.
Two members of our staff are trained medical professionals and worked in medical environment in the past. If any doubt was raised about potential infection in the team, all necessary measures (including full disinfection of our facilities) would be immediately taken.

Thank you very much for your understanding.