Shipping a package international?

[borschtBomber[SS]]

Ok, so I am selling a 2900 XT and have a guy in Greece interested. Never shipped anything to another country besides Canada. Prices from UPS and DHL are like $130+ while USPS is about $40. Anyone ever ship anything international and have any advice or what service to use? Thanks

['Amp!']

I have shipped to Canada with USPS and gotten good results.

But what I did to help the guy out was I gift wrapped the product so customs thought it was a gift and not a commercial product. It saved the guy a ton in duties and fees.

[raidersforever01]

Yup gift wrapping is the way to go nothing wrong with USPS i use them all the time no problems yet. Make sure you leave a good card with it adds a nice touch to the gift look.

[Miker]

USPS is the fastest and cheapest. It always helps to gift wrap it too.

[sushrukh]

USPS is cheapest Miker but it's the slowest of all in case of overseas shipping.XFX has sent me my prize on 12th of February but it's still on the way.DHL is the fastest of the lot.It took them just 2 days to ship my lappy from Taiwan to India.Next fastest is Fed-Ex International Priority (3 days),then UPS (4-5 days) & then Fed-Ex International Economy (5-6 days).Last being the USPS which takes even 1 month to ship internationally if you don't pay for a little bit costly services called Global Express Guaranteed or Express Mail International.USPS generally takes 15-30 days to ship overseas in general.

BB, you do one thing, send the card to him via USPS but make sure that you insure the package.Insurance just adds a few dollars but protects against the loss or damage of the product during shipment.Just ask them (USPS guyz) that you wanna ship an insured parcel to Greece.Also make sure to write the value of the product under $40 on the shipping documents.If you write the full value, he'll end up paying a lot of tax on it.So, make sure you keep the value within $30-$40.Like $32 or $38 anything that should fall in this range.No less than $30 & no more than $40.Keep the value in between.If you keep the value too low like $3 or $10 ,the customs will start investigating about the real value of the product & he will have to pay even more tax.As i have received some products through the USPS, this is the way to get the product to your customer safely.

So, in short do these 4 things.

1. Use this USPS service :- Priority Mail® International (http://www.usps.com/international/prioritymailinternational.htm)

2. Add insurance to the package by paying a few more dollars.

3. Claim the value of the product within $30-$40 on shipping documents.

4. Ask for the Tracking number for the shipment & give that to your customer in Greece.

[srpeters18]

That may save him money Sush, but it completely negates the need for insurance. If you put $40 on the customs form then you can only insure it for $40. Kind of pointless if you ask me.

[tomato]

Make sure to get yourself a Tracking Number AND Insure the item for the full amount, lest you will be out of said amount if the package is somehow lost. You could ask the buyer to split the above costs with you.

BUT, you need to tell them that they are completely responsible for any and all customs fees. You don't want that to come back and haunt you.

[borschtBomber[SS]]

Yeah, I told him I had no idea about duties and customs stuff, so I think I'm cool there. He's supposed to send the money in a few days..we'll see how it all goes. :) Thanks for all the suggestions guys.