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Afternoon

I'm sure this has been covered but can't find the thread (search won't display results beyond the first page. Anyway, I need to send a box to South Africa (under a couple of KGs in weight, a foot or so square) - any suggestions / recommendations?

I used to use Royal mail, but I think their price structure has changed making it a lot more expensive...

Tom

In my experience Royal Mail are still not too bad for smallish parcels.

But I am sure someone will have a better suggestion.

trouble is a lot of the royal mail abroad stuff isn't fully tracked, so you have the worry of it getting lost

if its anything over 50-100 (or an amount you can suck up if it goes missing) then a proper carrier is the only way

I spend days of my life freight forward quoting and sorting out the customs paperwork / import licences for parcels, ups/dhl are really good into South Africa as they both sort out the paper work, where as the royal mail sort it out separate, so it can take longer as they don't have the same agreements in place that the big parcel people do with the customs - this means that parcels can be opened and customs values have to be paid before the parcel is delivered.

South Africa is actually one of the most switched on countries for imports - if you know what your doing over there with respect to paper work / getting import permits and with some careful wording of paperwork you can really reduce the amount of duty you have to pay

Rich, please share any wording "skills" that you may know of because with the current exchange rate plus duties plus VAT we are dying over here I've sometimes had to pay duties on second hand parts bought off ebay (!) and it seems to happen randomly.

I agree that UPS/DHL are good. I have also had tons of stuff (mostly smallish) sent over by Royal Mail without any of it going missing - even surface mail (dunno if that's still an option) which can take a few months always makes it in the end.

abri wrote:Rich, please share any wording "skills" that you may know of because with the current exchange rate plus duties plus VAT we are dying over here I've sometimes had to pay duties on second hand parts bought off ebay (!) and it seems to happen randomly.

I agree that UPS/DHL are good. I have also had tons of stuff (mostly smallish) sent over by Royal Mail without any of it going missing - even surface mail (dunno if that's still an option) which can take a few months always makes it in the end.

in sa you, as a resident can get an import permit that allows you to take in various things at a reduced duty rate / no duty - this import permit number must always be displayed on the parcels / invoices. this is all sorted in sa, we as the shipper / seller just have to make sure the paper work is correct.


one thing that does help in sa is to make sure the parcel and the invoice say 'MOTOR RACING PARTS, NOT FOR RESALE'

I tend to put this on parcels going to Australia as it 'seems' to help the parcels journey through customs their as well.....


obviously anything I do has to be above board, so if there is any doubt in my mind that a customer is 'trying it on' I wont do it - I can still remember the burning shame of the letter I got from HM customs and excise when I filled a load of forms out wrong (the customer lied) and I got the bollocking for it!

I use Interparcel.com this company has a quote system that gives you 4 or 5 options with different couriers ups, parcelfarce, tnt,fedex and are very competitive, they will collect from your home or work which is handy. FedEx are the only company that can customs clear their own parcels, ups lost this after shipping some dodgy printer cartridges so to that end I normally ship with them. Their system will generate customs invoices, waybills and address labels so for one off shipments I cannot fault (apart from tnt collections which hermes collect on their behalf and never seem to show up!) Gray