Odd, isn't it...

[ffutures]

...that when I sell a fairly heavy camera lens on eBay I can get it to the USA in a week, with insurance and tracking, for £17.....

...but if I want to buy a fairly light bit of software from a US vendor on eBay (a disk plus manual in a plastic bag) they quote me up to $50 depending on delivery speed, with delivery at that price still taking up to a week.

Are the US postal options really that crap, or do US vendors just not want to do business with British buyers?

Comments

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Everybody's numbers don't count the time they'll need to spend in line at the PO because it is an international shipment

Line? I occasionally have to wait a couple of minutes at my post office, but rarely longer. And if I had a scale at home, I could just put on the correct stamps and drop it in the post box at the end of my street.

Of course, American postal law is just strange. For example, it is apparently illegal to label a parcel going to a school, the contents of which will be used in a classroom, as "for educational use" unless the contents are textbooks. At least, the warehouse/shipping manager of a major American games company told me that.

(She also told me that missing parcels had to be traced from the recipient's end, not the shipper's, which Canada Post and Canada Customs found very strange.)

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

The USPS is picky. If you have a package over 16 ounces, you -must- drop it with an employee of the USPS: they have to see you. They have questions they -always- ask you, the answers to which are "No, No, No, No, No, and No."

At the very fastest PO in my area, any transaction involving forms (like sending something over 16 oz, or sending something internationally) takes about five minutes, not including line time. I've found a place that usually doesn't have long lines, but the last time I went (to ship a book to Canada) I had to wait five minutes for someone to emerge from the back to handle my transaction.

My record (for sending something to Marcus, FWIW, years ago) was 25 minutes in line and 15 minutes at the counter. There were only five people in front of me.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Weird - when I was selling my camera gear and some other stuff a couple of weeks ago I sent two international insured packages and four recorded delivery inland in about five minutes, and I thought that was taking longer than usual. The stuff I send internationally on a day-to-day basis, like the Forgotten Futures CD-ROM, just goes in a jiffy bag with a label showing its value and weight and my address, rubber stamps to show that it's "Airmail" and "Small Packet", and a few stamps, I drop it in any post box. As far as I know you can post anything that way provided it'll fit through the post box slot and you don't want insurance etc., I don't think weight comes into it.