Posting from UK to US

[R-James]

Guys,

I'm looking to send a sanguine razor, 5 merkur blades, some Coral skinfood, Almond oil bodywash and a coupe Floris samples from the UK to the US. Is there any issues with mailing blades or am I ok to go down to the post office and just send it via regular air freight?


Cheers,

Richie

[sammyz]

Guys,

I'm looking to send a sanguine razor, 5 merkur blades, some Coral skinfood, Almond oil bodywash and a coupe Floris samples from the UK to the US. Is there any issues with mailing blades or am I ok to go down to the post office and just send it via regular air freight?


Cheers,

Richie

I would imagine there won't be, however if you were to ask someone at Trumpers for instance if they have ever had trouble shipping that stuff, they would probably know well as I imagine they do it all the time.

[letterk]

As long as nothing contains alcohol, and the blades are packaged well, you shouldn't have a problem.

What I don't understand is why it costs 4x as much to send something to the US from the UK then sending something to the UK from the US?!

[wetshavingmonkey]

What you need to do is go down to your post office (or online, if they have it) and have them look up the mailing restrictions for the US. Every country has different rules regarding what they will allow across their borders, and in what quantity. In the US, our big thing is whether the package being sent contains anything liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous -- and I don't think the almond body wash would be a problem. Just tape the lid down, and put it in a zip lock type bag. As far as asking someone at Trumpers, that may not do any good, because businesses performing multiple mailings a day are treated differently than the individual mailing the occasional package. Also, you might want to check if any of the items are dutiable, because that can significantly raise the grand total of the shipping costs. But, in all likelyhood, none of those items look like a problem. Hope this helps.

[wetshavingmonkey]

As long as nothing contains alcohol, and the blades are packaged well, you shouldn't have a problem.

What I don't understand is why it costs 4x as much to send something to the US from the UK then sending something to the UK from the US?!


Every country has different mailing rates, and the USPS strikes deals with each country as to what the charges will be to ship to those countries, and vice versa. It costs more to ship from any country into the US than from the US to elsewhere because, love 'em or hate 'em, the USPS has the cheapest rates in the world -- as well as the most secure service.

[letterk]

Every country has different mailing rates, and the USPS strikes deals with each country as to what the charges will be to ship to those countries, and vice versa. It costs more to ship from any country into the US than from the US to elsewhere because, love 'em or hate 'em, the USPS has the cheapest rates in the world -- as well as the most secure service.

It's the same though for other shipping services as well. I was going to purchase something from Turkey. Shipping via UPS or FedEx was $650 to here, but about $150 if I wanted to send it back. Same service, but different rates depending on where the item originated. Weird.

[wetshavingmonkey]

It's the same though for other shipping services as well. I was going to purchase something from Turkey. Shipping via UPS or FedEx was $650 to here, but about $150 if I wanted to send it back. Same service, but different rates depending on where the item originated. Weird.

Not weird at all, several of the reasons for huge cost disparities like that are delivery networks and customs duties. The more efficient the network, the cheaper the cost, and the US has a pretty good network for moving mail with lots of cost cutting automation. As for customs duties, I work for the USPS, and I have seen foreign packages come through requiring hundreds of dollars of customs to be collected. The postal service isn't asking for these fees, US Customs is, and that fee is passed on to the recipient. And keep in mind, this will be different in every country.

Here is an even stranger situation. The USPS has a Global Express Service for guarateed deliveries to other countries. Now, rather than incur the massive expense of setting up delivery networks in every country, we partnered up with Fedex to do these deliveries because their foreign networks are already in place. In essence, the USPS only acts as an agent to accept these packages and Fedex is responsible for getting them there and delivering. Here's the strange part, it is cheaper to ship a package through USPS Global Express Service, than directly through Fedex -- even though all we are doing is accepting the package. Same workers handling the package, same pilots flying it on the same plane.