Cheap intl postage for donating clothes

Tinkywinks108

Hi,
I am trying to find a cheap way of getting some clothes sent to Turkey. Basically, I have managed to get at least 15 kilos of used clothes and want to send them to a poor village in Manisa, where a friend who is teaching there has told us that clothes are very much needed, especially by the children.
Problem is, we are getting delivery quotes in the excess of £100 and can not afford to pay this! Does anyone know of any way we can get these items sent in the cheapest way possible?
(The clothes can also be sent to the next largest city, Izmir if this makes it any easier).

soolin

On the ebay board (see my sig) there is a parcel thread, you are bound to get a good idea where to look for a quote if you ask on there)

Savvy_Sue

It is of course worth checking whether it really is difficult to get children's clothing there, or whether it's just a question of no money to buy them. We have had a couple of recent thread about sending clothes to Africa and Pakistan, where it's not hard to get clothes in bulk in the local market, so posting them from the UK really isn't a sensible option: better to raise money here perhaps by selling said clothes and then send money for clothes to be bought there.

I don't know what the situation is in Turkey, of course.

paddy3d

I think Turkey is a tricky country to send to. With counties like this I think the best company to go with is Parcelforce, they are the most reliable and I have always had good experiences with them. You could go direct or use one of the following sites - Parcel2go, interparcel, SendingParcels, Parcel monkey etc. etc. there are loads of them. I agree with Soolin - have a look at the parcel delivery thread and you will get some good ideas.
Paddy

Tinkywinks108

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

It is of course worth checking whether it really is difficult to get children's clothing there, or whether it's just a question of no money to buy them. We have had a couple of recent thread about sending clothes to Africa and Pakistan, where it's not hard to get clothes in bulk in the local market, so posting them from the UK really isn't a sensible option: better to raise money here perhaps by selling said clothes and then send money for clothes to be bought there.

I don't know what the situation is in Turkey, of course.

It is the lack of money which is the problem. I guess it's just such a pity to hear stories through my friend about how the children aren't properly clothed, while we have bags of clothes here (collected between my extended family) to spare because our children have grown out of them. But I think you're right, it doesn't actually make economical sense, and rather than spending money on postage, we should maybe even just send the cash equivalent.

Thank you soolin and Paddy, will look into it now.