Shipping out of your country (1 Viewer)

[marco55]

I'm in the process of selling some books to someone in the Netherlands.I have never been crazy about selling to someone outside of the U.S. for 2 reasons.I have it in my head that there is a good chance that it will get lost and reason number two is the shipping costs. I sold these books for $30 and I just went to the post office to get an estimate of how much it would cost to ship them and it was around $50I would imagine it would cost even more if I shipped them UPS or Fed-Ex.Anybody got any opinions about this.I have to let the guy know how much but I don't want to give him a heart attack.He would probably have to pay custom duties and the ever popular VAT tax also.
Mark

 

[Spitfrnd]

I'm in the process of selling some books to someone in the Netherlands.I have never been crazy about selling to someone outside of the U.S. for 2 reasons.I have it in my head that there is a good chance that it will get lost and reason number two is the shipping costs. I sold these books for $30 and I just went to the post office to get an estimate of how much it would cost to ship them and it was around $50I would imagine it would cost even more if I shipped them UPS or Fed-Ex.Anybody got any opinions about this.I have to let the guy know how much but I don't want to give him a heart attack.He would probably have to pay custom duties and the ever popular VAT tax also.
Mark

That is odd to me since I regularly send and receive items from the UK and some other European countries for around $10 or less. I have even bought some very large coffee table sized books for under $15 in shipping. Of course for the UK he would not have to pay duty on $30, which would be the declared value you would put in your customs form.

 

[Gideon]

Books are heavy. You can use First Class International if the package is under 4 lbs. But make sure to purchase delivery confirmation as it is listed in a tracking search every time the package is scanned.

If over 4 lbs, then you have to use Priority Mail. $50 is about right for 5,6,7 lbs. It's very expensive to ship but no real way around it. Books are books.

That is why I weigh most lots I am selling. I plug in the weight and let the usps system provide shipping quotes for the weight classes the packages fit into. That way, there's no excuse for someone who bids to later say that shipping is too expensive. Nothing I can do about that but the information is provided none-the-less.

International packages generally don't get lost. I haven't had an international go missing in a few years. Tho, it seems a media mail package to an APO/FPO recently went missing - that's considered domestic tho.

 

[marco55]

The lady at the post office said it couldn' go media and they don't ship by boat no more.The package probably weighs 4-5 pounds.
Mark