Overseas postage costs!

windswept

I was shocked last night when I went to check the cost of posting a long item to Greece.:eek:
I got a message from a lady asking various questions about some giant kites that we have, at the end she asked for postage costs to Greece as we specified worldwide postage (big mistake!).
It came up with a minimum of £35 on parcel force, for SURFACE mail!
I checked on other parcel sites and it was a similar story, I couldn't believe it and quickly changed my listings to UK only. I had originally put ww post at £10. the kites are in a tube 4ft long x 4" x 4", about a kilo in weight and only cost £22 in the first place. luckily all our other large kites are very expensive so are listed to UK only-phew!
The moral for today children, check postage rates before you list unusual items.

nightswimmer

windswept wrote:

I was shocked last night when I went to check the cost of posting a long item to Greece.:eek:
I got a message from a lady asking various questions about some giant kites that we have, at the end she asked for postage costs to Greece as we specified worldwide postage (big mistake!).
It came up with a minimum of £35 on parcel force, for SURFACE mail!
I checked on other parcel sites and it was a similar story, I couldn't believe it and quickly changed my listings to UK only. I had originally put ww post at £10. the kites are in a tube 4ft long x 4" x 4", about a kilo in weight and only cost £22 in the first place. luckily all our other large kites are very expensive so are listed to UK only-phew!
The moral for today children, check postage rates before you list unusual items.

Good tip. People forget when posting abroad that it's not just the weight of the parcel that matters, but also the dimensions.

To see the minimum/maximum limits for standard Airmail , you need to scroll down to the last table on this page:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?mediaId=400036&catId=400033

apprentice_tycoon

I think that I'm correct with this but don't mind being corrected if need be -

There are size restrictions on normal RM airmail, the size of the box must add up to no more than 900cm (height+ length+ depth) this is just for parcels up to 2 kilos

But with Parcel Force there are weight bands but no specific intructions on dimensions if you take the parcel to the Post Office BUT if you have them collect the parcel from you the dimensions matter a lot and if the parcel is over certain dimensions then it's worked out as volumetric weight which takes it to a heavier weight band because of the size

Example -I took a light but bulky parcel to the PO to go by Parcel Force, I had priced it up with their website by keying in the measurements, I printed it out and took it to the PO. They weighed it and said that will be £X amount, I said, no it will be more like £XXXXX amount because of the size, I showed them the paper that I'd printed out from the Parcel Force website with all the dimensions, the staff had never seen any of this before - we had a very long conversation about this and the manager ended up calling her manager to check, they all confirmed that this only applied to the van service, if it's over the counter at the PO any size is OK -the parcel was posted at the price for the actual weight and there were no problems with it being returned etc

So in the case of the long thin kite the only thing that will count is the weight of 1 kilo so to Greece it will be £20.50 (ish, I think that I have an out of date price book so it may be a little more) by air

windswept

I did find the parcel force price guide a tad confusing, but I still doubt the customer will cough up £20 postage on a £22 kite. shame as she wanted two by the sound of her message. when I sent the same thing to london, it cost £4.95, which was what I charged, so I made a slight loss of profit there as well .

neilwoods

It is all based on volumetric weight, so for this kite it would be £25.

royalmail have on there site where you can enter the weight and dimensions to find the right price.

apprentice_tycoon

neilwoods wrote:

It is all based on volumetric weight, so for this kite it would be £25.

royalmail have on there site where you can enter the weight and dimensions to find the right price.

'
If this applies to 'over the counter' parcels with Parcel Force how does that explain why my bulky parcel was priced just on weight and posted without any repercussions? it was MUCH cheaper than the volumetric weight quote that I'd seen on the website

windswept

unfortunately the kites in question are enormous and in a hard plastic tube that is 125 cm long x 20 cm wide x 10cm deep, too long for the 90cm limit. (the uk limit is 150 cm, I hadn't realised that overseas limits would be smaller) I even got a kite out and measured the spars to see how long they are- the longest is 100cm. so taking them out of the pack wouldn't even help.

apprentice_tycoon

windswept wrote:

unfortunately the kites in question are enormous and in a hard plastic tube that is 125 cm long x 20 cm wide x 10cm deep, too long for the 90cm limit. (the uk limit is 150 cm, I hadn't realised that overseas limits would be smaller) I even got a kite out and measured the spars to see how long they are- the longest is 100cm. so taking them out of the pack wouldn't even help.

They wouldn't pass the size tests for Royal Mail Airmail but they should be accepted for Parcel Force (but only over the counter) I'd taken one to the PO next time you're there just to reassure yourself, it maybe too expensive for a cheap kite but a buyer might think that it was OK for a dearer one.