Postage question (completely and totally NVR but I need some help)
OK this is so far off topic it's almost in another galaxy but I don't have anyone I can ask here.
I want to order something from the States and the postal charges from the website seem completely extreme. It would be a small medallion and a rosary mounted on a card. Price $17. Not bad, says I, well worth ordering for a gift I want to give. Postage from GA to Spain--another $17???? When postage within the States is like $3?
Surely this is excessive? It doesn't say anything about "next day mail" or "priority" or even "registered." Considering the fact that it can not be all that heavy, would I be better off askign someone stateside to get it for me and send it on? I can't quite justify 35 bucks for something I know will not be very high quality. (I don't know what "silver oxide" means but I bet it ain't sterling.) Considering that it doubles the price of the item...
Any ideas?
I think it's a good idea to mail to someone stateside and then have them mail it to you - a regular letter is $1.60 USD, and I can't imagine that the medallion weighs much more.
Perhaps they're charging for the pain and heartache of entering the contents on the claims form ;)
Is it from a company or a person like on ebay or something?
I'm guessing it's not too bad of a price, unfortunately... I've spent $17 to overnight something a few times. So, across the ocean might cost that much? I don't know. I should shut up.
I don't think that $17 is all that unreasonable. I recently sent a package from here (Ontario) to California, it cost $20 & got there in 3 days, so if you can get away with overseas shipping for less than 20 bucks, I say it's a good deal :)
Unfortunately, back in May when postal rates went up here in the states, they also stopped overseas surface mail, which was much cheaper than air mail. All overseas mail and parcels must go by air now. I sent a small paperback book to a friend of mine in England and it cost nearly $11.00, almost the price of the book itself. :(
Okay, now I'm curious. I actually do a lot of budgeting that involves mail for work, so I scoped out the USPS site to see what's up. Turns out they still have First-Class regular mail delivery: http://www.usps.com/ratecase/simplified_international_rates.htm
But when I used the postage calculator http://ircalc.usps.gov/ I found that a 6oz letter to Spain is $5 for "regular" mail, but it quickly jumps to $25-32 if you send anything faster. I bet that's what the site you're purchasing from is using. Good Luck!
$17 isn't bad at all. I ordered the Vitamix off of Ebay (GREAT blender, BTW!!!), and the shipping and handling to Canada was $50. OK, no biggie. I understood it had to go through customs and whatnot. But what really threw me off was when I got the post office, I had to pay ANOTHER $50 for the postage! I was NOT told about that! Needless to say, I did pay for it (reluctantly).