Chances are, if you've ever ordered an item from Japan, you've had the pleasure of having your new purchase sent to you via EMS. For a relatively low cost, you could potentially have an items ship out from Tokyo, for example, and arrive at your doorstep in London within 3 days. All the while, you could have checked its updated status online, and even had updates sent to your email.
Such is the little marvel that is EMS, or Express Mail Service.Contrary to popular belief, EMS is not from Japan per se; rather it was created by the Universal Postal Union, an agency of the United Nations. Currently, more than 190 countries and territories in the world offer EMS shipping.
Currently, I offer EMS shipping alongside Registered Airmail (RA) as shipping options. However, perhaps RA will not last forever. Although RA is one-third the price of EMS, it's much slower and often provides little to no tracking, depending on which country it's going to. USPS, for example, won't provide any online tracking on RA. The only way to track a package in this case is to call USPS; the shortest wait time I've had on the phone with them was 30 minutes, the longest was quoted at 2 hours (I hung up, it's an international call after all).
This is why I recommend choosing EMS for shipping. It's still fine to choose RA, but please bear in mind it could take 2-4 weeks, and you'll receive little to no tracking info along the way. Perhaps the bit of extra money for EMS won't hurt so much in the end!
