Thread: Outrageous postage costs

If it was Global Shipping program it would have been around $80 or more.

You really need to check shipping whenever you bid on something. Complaining afterwards is too late.

Shipping is getting increasingly expensive and overseas will soon be prohibitive unless you want to take a chance with low priority and hope it gets there.

Interestingly enough but the last dozen of plain priority mail flat rate boxes ($23.50), advertised on the USPS web site as 'No Tracking', have all had tracking and final delivery status. I've been scratching my head on this one. Even the few cheapest 'First Class Mail' I send had tracking until the end. They were all shipped to Belgium, UK, Switzerland, France and Sweden. As a side note I had one customer pay the extra $50.00+ for the Express int. and we were both in fear as nothing got tracked the week it was underway with no updates whatsoever. Only when it got delivered in Holland was the tracking updated.

Originally Posted by Maximilian

Interestingly enough but the last dozen of plain priority mail flat rate boxes ($23.50), advertised on the USPS web site as 'No Tracking', have all had tracking and final delivery status. I've been scratching my head on this one. Even the few cheapest 'First Class Mail' I send had tracking until the end. They were all shipped to Belgium, UK, Switzerland, France and Sweden. As a side note I had one customer pay the extra $50.00+ for the Express int. and we were both in fear as nothing got tracked the week it was underway with no updates whatsoever. Only when it got delivered in Holland was the tracking updated.

I think that's something that may happen but USPS does not guarantee that it will. Basically there's a customs label with a number that can be scanned and entered into the various mail systems as the package travels, but they aren't obligated to do it. With real tracking USPS has agreements with those other postal services on their responsibility to do it and liability if they fail to.
Even if it doesn't show publicly as long as you've paid for tracking they are responsible to provide it upon request and if they fail to do you should be able to get back some amount of money.

I asked my friendly postal clerk awhile back about tracking and tracking. Apparently USPS puts a tracking number on all packages for their internal use. If you want to follow the package you pay for tracking and get the tracking number on your receipt.

all I know is EVERY SINGLE TIME I ship something out of the U.S. it has been stuck in customs and a few times in Canada the buyer had to cover additional cost ( I don't remember what they were ) to get there packages so I stopped doing it ..

i suppose I'll just have to keep my eyes open for a 1056 for sale in UK or Europe. $45, or £30 for insured/tracked mail for something as small as a razor is extortionate!

When an item is shipped into a country (any country) it is subject to customs duty which varies by country and item. There are a few duty free zones in the world.

Countries get big monies by customs duty and most countries are very aggressive about collecting it. The U.S is pretty soft on it though. Commercial shippers have brokerage houses that take care of all that and if you ship with Fedex, UPS or DHL you will pay duty and fees. With USPS it's a matter of luck and that varies by what country it comes from and how busy Customs is and whether they are have a blitz at the time.

There are international treaties covering the mvmt of international mail and if a country is a signatory they have to meet minimum standards. However some postal services are terrible. The U.S has the best in the world followed by Germany and most of the Northern European Countries and Japan too. If you send to a place like Italy and you have no tracking or insurance well.....it may show up some day or it may not.

Originally Posted by wayne394

i suppose I'll just have to keep my eyes open for a 1056 for sale in UK or Europe. $45, or £30 for insured/tracked mail for something as small as a razor is extortionate!

Not to mention 20% VAT and £8 handling fees for anything over £15.
I did just order a 30/60x loupe for £2.89 shipped on ebay from china though.
All the best stuff I want is from US

I have an interesting story. I'm young and dumb, had no clue about duties and what not. I've order items from japan all the time, and have never been forced to pay to get my package. Harrywally is making me a brush, and I supplied the materials. The knot is a 28mm High Mountain White. Not cheap, so I declared it's value in case the package was lost en route to Canada from the US. He had to pay 63$ US just to pick it up! So my 30$ to ship ups and his 68$ to claim it ended up costing me 100$ just to send him the wood and knot! Let's just say Andrew is a really good guy, and I learned a valuable lesson in global shipping!

Ordering from Japan is hit or miss with me, I would guess that 2/3 of the time no custom charges. US I pay custom charges 100% of the time.