Anyone have suggestions?

I would appreciate some info on how to ship things from US to Europe (or anywhere international). Not anything very big or heavy, but I am trading magazines with Baa, and sending a 3 lb envelope of old magazines turned out to cost $9.00 by USPS. Outrageous. It was cheapter to send it Global Priority than surface, which is really stupid. Whatever happened to inexpensive shipping? UPS quoted me $63.00!

Someone must have experience with this: it doesn't have to get there overnight, but for a package to be that high is incredible. Postal workers couldn't give me any suggestions either.

And maybe I can send Wintermoor a carrot cake when it cools down? LOL

Hmmm...that seems mighty expensive. Try this site and see if you can find a better (perhaps more informed) rate.http://ircalc.usps.gov/

Whoops, edited cuz I mis-read...I thought USPS was charging $63.
Nine bucks is about normal for a pkg like that.


This message was edited Monday, Sep 9th 4:05 PM

Kathy I paid 12 to send magazines to a friend in Chile last year and that was under the old rates. Really high

Don't send it Kathy, I'll come and get it..... it's probably cheaper...lol

Sorry, but I can't help with this, as in our business we only use the overnights, and they are really expensive.

Wintermoor

There is a book/media rate I'm sure.....My sister sends books to Japan and Turkey all the time.

it goes by weight and mags are heavy. have paid a lot more than that to send plants to Great Britain before! no way around it, it's just expensive

I paid just under $7 to ship a fairly small parcel of 2lbs to Germany via surface this last winter, and prices have gone up since then.

Back in the '60s and '70s and even '80s there were freight companies that would ship packages anywhere in the world for a few cents a pound (up to about 50 lbs). Whatever happened to them?

I used to have international pen pals when I was in school, and we sent things all the time: Australia, England, Spain and Jamaica. Took months, but it was so cheap. I can't remember any of the names anymore (it was 20 years ago), but have they all gone?

I sent things to some of my nieces/nephews when they lived in Germany a couple of years ago, via APO, very cheap. Of course, that was military, but aren't there any of the frieght companies left anymore?

The freight companies are all there, or most of them, but everything to do with them has got more expensive, of course, wages, fuel, rent, etc.
Only businesses can really afford to use them nowadays, it's a shame, but true.

Wintermoor

I know that some magazines have their back issues available online. Don't know how much help that would be.

A suggestion would be to remove ALL the advertising from them that you can without compromising the articles. I have done that and saved almost half the shipping costs! Lani

I ship to relatives in Europe all the time and it's disgraceful how much it costs. I paid 7 dollars to send a 6 dollar diary to a 10 year old for her birthday just last week. I've just resigned myself to figuring that it's part of the gift.

Surface is cheaper,but we've had things broken into and stuff stolen more than once when using surface.

Melody, the postal prices are disgraceful, and have been so this last 10 years, and the disgrace is getting worse in that, as you say, when people try to use the cheaper route, things very often go missing.
This is another reason why businesses use courier companies to personally hand over the letter/package/packet or whatever the post is.

Wintermoor

Whichever way you go, I think it's helps to insure it, even if for only the minimum. Someone looking at it in the post office knows it better not go missing, and I think that makes a difference in the care they take. Not to blame the workers, but that has been my experience. I have never had a problem with anything I insured.