US post office

[Conquistador]

<snip>  I think we all have plenty of grip.

Help!  My hand is stuck to my keyboard and I can't control it!   

[twrchtrwyth]

. No, the rising cost is a result of increased cost to manufacture and sculptors/casters among other charging more for their specialised skills.  I definitely support the latter - it just means I am more selective in my buying.  Well except that anything by Sandra Garrity is almost a sinful temptation...     .  . 

No, the cost of postage I meant. I remember when postage from the US seemed like nothing, but the cost of living was less, 75p for a litre of petrol, those were the days. LOL

[Timbor]

As to the OP, when I send a few miniatures from Canada, I usually tape them between some thin cardboard (usually cut up a cereal box of kleenex box), then wrap the cardboard in tape so there is a nice little package. Then I put it in a small bubble envelope (or have even done a regular envelope, wrapped in tape). As long as the max depth is less than .75" I can send it as a 'large envelope'. Ends up costing me about $3-4 to send to Europe vs at least $10 or more for a parcel.

It might be worth a try... maybe just hope you have a nice postal clerk who is willing to send it as a letter rather than a parcel? Maybe say it is a birthday card that's why the letter is thicker? 

[FionaWhite]

Help!  My hand is stuck to my keyboard and I can't control it!   

Put multiple quotes into one message, it'll look less rampant. 

[Duncan McDane]

It did come to a point that I no longer buy miniatures from outside the EU and don't back non-EU-friendly kickstarters. The import taxes/fees always were a calculated risk, but the shipping has gone up to a point where it's no longer fun. A few singel models in a padded enveloppe, a 64 page rulebook, why it has to be shipped priority by airplane by default. I don't care if it takes 3-5 days or 6 weeks to arrive, I care if the book/models + shipping cost me 60 US$ instead of 20 US$. Even the "gift"  notification on parcels doesn't work anymore, unless you're lucky. 

[warrenpeace]

Well, eventually when we order figures from anywhere in the world we'll just print them out on our 3D printers! No shipping at all!

[Duncan McDane]

Yeah, until we're getting taxed for downloading files from outside the country  .

[Dolmot]

It did come to a point that I no longer buy miniatures from outside the EU and don't back non-EU-friendly kickstarters. The import taxes/fees always were a calculated risk, but the shipping has gone up to a point where it's no longer fun.

Yep, I still remember the times when I used to order assorted junk from the US pretty much monthly. Now I can't recall ordering a single thing in two years, even though my personal finances have definitely improved since those student days. The combination of tightened customs practices, insane shipping costs and unfavourable exchange rates makes everything prohibitively expensive. (Don't worry, dear US marketplace sellers. I won't even bother asking any more, because it would only be waste of everyone's time. You're safe.)

why it has to be shipped priority by airplane by default. I don't care if it takes 3-5 days or 6 weeks to arrive, I care if the book/models + shipping cost me 60 US$ instead of 20 US$.

There may be many reasons, but apparently there are too many customers out there who go outright ballistic if their goods haven't arrived in a week. The fine (or large) print on delivery terms just doesn't matter in the slightest. It's merrily ignored. Then begin the refund requests, and often they'll get it as well from their payment processor. (Heck, for a long time you had to file a PayPal complaint within six weeks of ordering or lose the chance of doing it.) Consequently, the seller may lose the goods and the money. When you factor in all the extra hassle involved, it doesn't take too many of those cases to make it not worth your while. With air mail shipping you'll definitely lose some good customers, but a greater percentage of the problematic nutjobs.

Back then I also noticed that many US traders tended to treat everything outside of the US as wilderness with lions, dragons, cannibals and scammers. All unregistered RoW mail was considered equivalent to just sending your stuff to Nigeria and starting to wait for a cheque. For example, one company initially wanted to send me some $15 batch of cake decoration plants by tracked courier mail for $60 or so. After a bit of negotiation they finally agreed to use plain USPS for less than $10. Well, nowadays the USPS price is also approaching $60 so there goes that option.

Meanwhile, our own post is utter shite too for private senders and small companies, but that's another story. In short, you probably don't want to buy anything from me unless you're OK with 200% markup from shipping.

[Elbows]

I think the majority of it is the lack of capacity to accommodate cheaper shipping.  Things in the US are so cheap - if international mail was subsidized and cheap, Wal-Mart could ruin the entire economy of other countries.  I don't think there are enough planes/material to accommodate the massive export of goods if folks in certain countries could buy stuff as cheap as we do.

FedEx and UPS are smart - in that they do enough business with actual businesses that private business is a kind of side-show for them.  Business accounts can ship via UPS/FedEx at rates which are sometimes 15-20% of the cost of a normal person if I were to walk into their shop with a box and ask to mail it.

I've been fortunate enough that the publisher of my game just yesterday announced they'd received an actual account with UPS for international shipping...so now my customers might save 20-40% ordering stuff from the US.  That's a plus.

I sent a test copy of my game to a place in Canada the other day for $18 (a small box), and to the UK for $22.50 (the contents inside each box was around $30 worth).  That was via USPS.  Simply can't interest people in paying that much for it. 

[Cubs]

I think some of these themes would be found in almost any international postage scenario.

For instance, if I sell anything in the UK over about £20-£30, say (I don't really have a hard and fast rule about it), I prefer to send via a trackable postage with insurance and a signature at the end. The cost would usually come out to around £7-£8, so fairly easy to swallow.

Now if I try to use the same principle for posting overseas, the price of the postage sometimes rockets (though not always), usually because of the signature for some reason. I can end up paying an extra £5 just for the signature.

So, if an item falls in that unfortunate bracket of the £20-ish mark, a customer could end up almost doubling their bill just on postage, even before we talk about the infamously random custom charges, because I want to have safeguards in place to cover my bum in case anything happens en route. Without this I don't feel comfortable sending anything of value, because experience has taught me how difficult it is to resolve a dispute with a foreign postal service (or maybe my own postal service, who is pointing the finger at the other one). 

[warrenpeace]

I just checked on the cost of shipping an order from an Australian company to the USA using DHL, and the shipping increased the price of the order by nearly 50%. I nearly choked! I recalculated what I would pay per item with shipping included, and it caused me to hold off on ordering until I'm really sure that I want to buy those items.

I'm sure this must also influence the cost of shipping miniatures back and forth to Sri Lanka for painting.

Edit: By contrast, I just ordered from Sarissa and was amazed by the 2.50 GBP postage worldwide. That's awesome!

[grubman]

I work for the USPS.

I don't want this to get political, and I don't want people from some countries to take this as an insult...but this is why shipping from the US to other countries is so expensive, and why shipping to the US from certain other countries is ridiculously cheap....

When someone from the US ships a package, they have to pay for the USPS to handle the package on our end (a reasonable price for the service), but they ALSO have to pay for the other country to handle the package on the other end (that is where the crazy price comes from).  The USPS doesn't deliver the package in the other country, their post does.  So your inflated cost isn't the USPS ripping you off and getting rich, it's the cost of paying the other countries fees.  Repeat...none of that inflated profit stays here in the US, so don't hate the USPS.

Not only that, but many countries grossly overcharge the USPS (or simply the citizens of the US, if you prefer) for this service, and in some cases this is used to help subsidize poorer countries (so it's even MORE expensive).

On the flip side, the USPS doesn't do this to other countries, and in some instances gives them huge discounts on our end (again, to help subsidize their poor economy).

[Conquistador]

I work for the USPS.

I don't want this to get political, and I don't want people from some countries to take this as an insult...but this is why shipping from the US to other countries is so expensive, and why shipping to the US from certain other countries is ridiculously cheap....

When someone from the US ships a package, they have to pay for the USPS to handle the package on our end (a reasonable price for the service), but they ALSO have to pay for the other country to handle the package on the other end (that is where the crazy price comes from).  The USPS doesn't deliver the package in the other country, their post does.  So your inflated cost isn't the USPS ripping you off and getting rich, it's the cost of paying the other countries fees.  Repeat...none of that inflated profit stays here in the US, so don't hate the USPS.

Not only that, but many countries grossly overcharge the USPS (or simply the citizens of the US, if you prefer) for this service, and in some cases this is used to help subsidize poorer countries (so it's even MORE expensive).

On the flip side, the USPS doesn't do this to other countries, and in some instances gives them huge discounts on our end (again, to help subsidize their poor economy).

It is beginning to make sense...

[Cubs]

Well yeah, but that doesn't really explain why it's cheaper for people to post to other countries than for the US to post to them, unless it's a big conspiracy and everyone just slaps premiums on post coming from the US.

[grubman]

Well yeah, but that doesn't really explain why it's cheaper for people to post to other countries than for the US to post to them, unless it's a big conspiracy and everyone just slaps premiums on post coming from the US.

I wouldn't use the word "conspiracy" because it's common knowledge...don't take my word for it, feel free to research the topic.