International orders, need advice

Matt Shade

Matt Shade

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Hi guys
I just listed a knife for sale, and a guy from Portugal is interested in buying it. I've never dealt with shipping to other countries and was wondering what you guys recommend on method of payment and how to figure out shipping costs :confused:
It seems like paypal might be the way to go for payment, but I want to hear from the guys who have been through this before.
I normally ship USPS, insured and all that. Can you do that on international stuff?

Thanks for any advice :)
 
:confused:
I'm sorry this was supposed to be in shoptalk. I'd appreciate it if a mod could move it there when they got a chance :o
 
I don't ship stuff but I do buy from America and the two best, easiest and least expensive ways to do it are:

USPS Global Express (Insured)
USPS Global Priority (Uninsured)

The easiest way to find out what it will cost is ring your post office with approximate size and weight of your parcel, they should be able to give you a cost for wherever you're sending it.

Make sure your customer knows and AGREES that any customs problems in his country is HIS problem, not yours.

It can be very difficult to ship to some countries from America.
 
Aloha Matt,

I've done over 200 deals in the last couple of years, buying/selling/trading knives through this and other forums, and several of those knives have gone to foreign countries. I've shipped to Ireland, England, Japan, Spain and others I can't remember. I have yet to encounter a problem (knock on wood), although a shipment to Poland took 3 weeks. The current record for me are 2 separate shipments to the UK that only took 3 days (and it takes 4 - 5 days for me to get a package to New York, go figure).

Just ship through USPS Global Priority, it's easy to figure out the postage online at the USPS website. You just have to know the weight of the package. If the package is less than 4 lbs., as I assume a knife would be, you just have to fill out what they call the "small" customs form, Form 2976.

As mentioned above, make sure the recipient knows that any customs fees are his/her responsibility. You may also want to ask the recipient what they want declared on the form, as far as a description goes. I often use "camp tool", not because I want to decieve customs, but "knife" might raise some red flags or might be more tempting to theives.

To make things even easier, USPS has Flat Rate Global Priority boxes that should be more than big enough for most knives.

Hope that helps, feel free to e-mail me should you need further guidance, advice or just to find out how nice the weather is over here :D
 
Matt Shade said:
Hi guys
I just listed a knife for sale, and a guy from Portugal is interested in buying it. It seems like paypal might be the way to go for payment, but I want to hear from the guys who have been through this before.
Click to expand...

Sellers from the US that deal with us folks across the big pond usually accept Paypal, Western Union money orders and Western Union Money Transfer service. Cash by mail worked fine for me so far too, if it's sent registered (you get cash, sign up CoD and that's it).

As to how to figure out shipping costs - there's an online calculator on USPS website somewhere which will give you a rough idea of what the shipping will cost. Call (or walk down to) your nearest post office with exact weight and delivery address and ask them what certain type of shipment ("insured airmail" in your case) would cost.

I normally ship USPS, insured and all that. Can you do that on international stuff?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can/. It's not prohibitively expensive either (compared to UPS or FedEx). Make sure you ask the buyer about their importing restrictions first so you two can work out what to put into customs declaration (either green CN22 label or slightly larger CN23 form, depends on size of the shipment).

Generally, the bigger the box the more likely customs clerks are to pry inside. If it's declared as a 'gift' the buyer won't be required to produce an invoice ('merchandise' requires an invoice and is generally far more hassle to deal with than it's worth). Bubblewrapper envelope would be ideal packaging method but some knives (very large fixed blades) probably wouldn't fit in one.
 
Thanks a ton guys :D I think I can handle this now.

The post office has all the customs forms and everythign I need to fill out right?
I'll go calculate the shipping cost and let the customer know, will have to see if he knows anything about customs over there.

Klesk,
I probably don't want to know what the weather is like out there right now. But if your curious about the weather here, open your freezer door, stick your head inside and then dump a bottle of water over it :( ;)
 
Indeed they do Matt, they might be just a tad clueless if the first time aroudn if you live in a small rown where they don't handle such shipments normally.CN22 form (green label, approximately 2"x2") is used for "letters" and CN23 form (larger, multiple sheets of copy-through paper) for packages judging by my past expeience. If you manage to get it through with CN22 (that depends on your shipment's dimensions and weight and whatever those clerks use to decide when big letter becomes a package) it might be less of a hassle for the buyer, not to mention lower shipping costs.
 
Thanks I'll have to remember the package size thing when I'm boxing it up. Its a pretty beefed up fixed blade, but not huge.
 
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