Ordering anything from China is a crap shoot. Sometimes it comes in 14 or so days, sometimes it may take 4 or 5 weeks. Most of the time I get my orders from China fairly quickly. But I have had a few take a lot longer.
Yup, i'm in Montreal, and of the 7 or so orders i've done over the past six months, the time from ordering to receiving my order varied from 3 weeks to 8 weeks. Been lucky and i've received everything I ever ordered...
Ive noticed that if you order heavier things, they tend to ship the order in two separate bags (a week apart)... maybe they have a maximum weight for that free shipping of theirs and it's actually less expensive for them to ship in two separate shipments instead of one big bag?
Ive also noticed that very light items are quite inespensive and heavier things rarely have competitive prices... case in point, DealExtreme: $18.69 Soldering Workstation with 5X Magnifier for Electronic DIY
is way overpriced compared to the other stuff on DX, I can get this at my local hobby shop for $6! The probable reason is that's a very heavy item and they offset the shipping cost in the price of the item.