Shipping a book to Oz

[Dennis Leahy]

This is off-topic from lutherie, in this particular case, but may come in handy for any type of shipping.

For those of you who live in Australia or New Zealand, when you buy a book from the US (for example, from Amazon.com, or Somogyi's book), how is it shipped to you? (USPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.)

I have a friend that just wrote a book on mining for gemstones and mineral specimens, and I'm building his website. I'm trying to set up a drop-down list for pricing including shipping. I am shocked to see the regular prices when I look at the US Postal Service and FedEx for a 4 pound (1835gram) book. (The package weight I put in was 5 pounds, but the package weight could probably be reduced to 4.5lbs (padded envelope instead of cardboard box.)

You blokes can't possibly be paying like $50 USD shipping for a 4 pound book, can you? I know everything shipped to you is "air mail" or "air freight", other than putting a large item on a boat - but damn!

Thanks!

Dennis
p.s. When I visit Australia, you'll have to tell me what to fill my suitcase with, that could be a bargain for you and help me pay for my trip. I'll bet that is cheaper per pound than freight!

[Nick]

USPS prices have just soared recently Dennis, especially when it comes as far as down under. I've just bought some more empty cigar boxes for upcoming CBG's and the woman who either runs the outfit or does the admin, actually apologised to me when quoting the cost of shipping, to ship $14U.S worth of boxes (4 units) it cost $59U.S! and that's just USPS Priority mail.
I haven't gotten any books recently from Amazon (don't seem to have time to read of late ) but I seem to remember they shipped USPS also unless you wanted them urgently then, of course you paid premium $ for DHL or FedEx, Some of the book orders I placed went via some very strange routes as well! Sometimes when I buy from Stewmac it's cheaper to ship DHL 3-7 days than it is USPS 2-4 weeks!
It's just the price of doing business with U.S suppliers now unfortunately, but it can be a sticking point when considering a purchase.

[Allen]

When I get orders from Elderly Instruments I always choose Economy Post International. It's usually about $10 instead of $30+ and the package seems to get here in less time that any other option besides DHL etc.

On another note, I just ordered a book via one of those Used Book stores in the USA. Postage was $5. Other places with the same book at the same price or more had postage up to $40. Don't know how this mob is doing it.

[Bob Connor]

I just received a 3/4" reverse spot-facer from Spenro in the States. (Think of something the weight of a router bit)

The spot-facer and shaft were $37.00 and post $88.00 via UPS.

[martintaylor]

Ask Stewart Macdonald who they use. I just checked my last invoices and they were all "Postal Air" and all reasonable. My most recent Amazon book delivery was under $10. I have found that bundling things together works well. Some individual items, if they are cheap to start with, end up being a little cost prohibitive but usually the total is still less than I can get the same product locally. I recently bought 2 x LR Baggs Anthem Pro Pickups for $299 each. The postage was $34. Total $632. If I had bought these pickups through any local supplier they would have been $1000 for the 2.

[jeffhigh]

I think the big boys like amazon get "mates rates" from the carriers rather than retail.
Stewmac's Postal rates seem to involve them sending it to europe and posting from there....takes about 4 weeks with the postal option.

[Kim]

Comparing what huge etailers like Stewmac and Amazon charge you for freight won't help much because their volumes open the door with carriers to 'far' cheaper rates than a regular customer will ever see. In fact if volumes are enough, there is no set rates as such because each big customer will bounce their figures from one carrier to the next to get the best deal.

This is why some vendors will 'only' ship via UPS and others only by Fedex. It just depends upon the terms of each individual contract but many vendors do lock themselves exclusively to the one carrier to get the best rates so they can pass on the savings and remain competitive. Therefore they can't ship using any other carrier because that would be a breech of contract.

In Bob's example above where he had been brutalised by UPS, my guess is that the vendor he used to buy the reverse spot bit is indeed locked in and therefore had no choice but to see him get screwed over by UPS. So what happened to passing on the savings to their customers to remain competitive?? Well it all comes back to volumes again and that company probably looked at their target market and cut a deal with UPS focused to reduce domestic freight cost 'only' thereby getting themselves a slightly better rate by leaving international freight out of the equation.

That arrangement would not suit a company with large international freight volumes like Stewmac but it does suit the requirements of most USA vendors who are only really interested in domestic sales. The trade off is that it then leaves the door open for UPS to charge what they like for anything from such a vendor which is going OS...and they do in order to make up some of the short fall on the domestic deliveries coming in from that vendor. This means that anyone outside the USA who buys goods from such a vendor is effectively subsidising freight cost for that vendor domestic customers..So you see it's true what they say, Bob Connor really is nice bloke who does what ever he can to help out others, even if he hasn't met them yet.

Nice one Bob

Cheers

Kim

[Dennis Leahy]

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, there is no way to get any deal on shipping if you are a small business sending out one small parcel occasionally. Sounds like international buyers are subsidizing not only domestic shipping but, when buying from small vendors, also subsidizing the big guys' international shipments.

I do appreciate the input!

Dennis

[DaveW]

StewMac use DHL and their prices are reasonable especially if you look at shipping times
if I order on a friday night I have it delivered to my doorstep in Perth on monday morning !!!!!! got no idea how they do that ?? well I am beginning to ,I think they have flights from a sorting area in Hong Kong direct to Perth over the weekend ,I know Fedex can be a problem to Perth as everything goes to Manila where the have a sorting area and then to Sydney which is ok if you live in Sydney or the east coast but they used to only have 1 flight a week to Perth so you could have stuff sitting in Sydney for a week as they use their own planes
Problem I find from the US is that rates are so variable I cant seem to work out how the price it ,sometimes USPS is cheap and quick and the next time expensive and slow,the way I look at it is the swings and roundabouts philosophy.
I used to get quite pissed off but now I just go with it ,win on some and loose on others
Dave

[Dennis Leahy]

I have a family member that worked for DHL, and I know how they did some of their magic: "mules."

It is cheaper to send a human being with "luggage" from, say, Los Angeles to Paris than it is to send the "luggage" as air freight. So, DHL hires people (or at least they used to), and the person was allowed only one piece of carry-on luggage (like a backpack.) Most or all of the pay was the free ticket. You met a DHL truck driver in the freight area, and were then handed 2 (I suppose it could be more) dufflebags full of ??? (small parcels, overnight letters, drugs, bombs, whatever), and then you checked them as your baggage. You were then met at the destination airport by another DHL rep who relieved you of the dufflebags. If the bags were more weight than a passenger could carry at the regular ticket price, DHL paid the extra. Buying a coach passenger ticket (and possibly paying for overage) was obviously cheaper than DHL sending 2 dufflebags at freight pricing.

This was before 9/11 and the ultra-super-ridiculous-heightened-frightened security madness, and I have no idea if they still do this or not. Probably not the same as it was. Perhaps they do the same thing, but now only use real DHL employees, rather than the looser family and friends policy they had many years ago.

Dennis

[needsmorecowbel]

I was shocked when I had to send fourteen pounds of Jelly beans back to Aus recently (for a wedding) to find that I couldn't send it by sea and had to fork out 45 bucks for the little 9 inch x 9 inch x 6 inch postage box. Funny thing was the Jelly beans were still cheaper than if I bought them back in Aus. AND PEOPLE SAID I SHOULDNT LISTEN TO THE VOICES IN MY HEAD TELLING ME TO BUY BIG ON JELLY BEANS. But I digress USPS, Fedex and DHL are pretty much out of budget unless you are going through a company like Stewmac or Amazon. They simply don't offer any discounts unless you are using their services all the time.

Try explaining to the lady at the post office that there are 14 pounds of jelly beans in the box

[charangohabsburg]

Looking forward to Stewmac selling jelly beans.

[kiwigeo]

Looking forward to Stewmac selling jelly beans.

Is there a Swiss Army jelly bean??

[needsmorecowbel]

Stewmac should just have their own postal service dammit....Sink all these other posers

[scripsit]

Dennis

I frequently buy books second hand from Abe Booksellers who are all over the world.

Shipping from the States used to be dirt cheap (typically $2-3) for paperbacks and small hard backs. An expensive, bigger format hard back might cost $10 for shipping.

The UK was always much slower and much more expensive.

In the last two years this has turned around.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered two large format hard backs which I could only find at two separate US bookstores. The quoted postage was about $20 on the Abe Books site. Both booksellers contacted me and told me that because of the weight (about 4 pounds) they could not send the books as normal surface mail, and offered to cancel the transaction if I did not want to upgrade to the next UPS type of shipping for this weight range.

It cost $50 each for shipping. I paid it because the books are hard to get anywhere but ...

I don't know if it's a conspiracy theory or not, but I've seen mentioned on other forums that the UPS was slugged with some bizarre bill for future employee benefits, something similar to the employee superannuation scheme here in Australia. The rationale seems to be a deliberate attempt by small government enthusiasts in the US government to drive yet another publicly funded organisation out of business.

Kym

[DaveW]

I Guess we have overlooked how much security must add on to an item shipping out of the states
since 9/11 ,dont think that because its coming out makes any difference it would be helping to pay for whats coming in as well.

[charangohabsburg]

Looking forward to Stewmac selling jelly beans.

Is there a Swiss Army jelly bean??

No, only Swiss Army chocolate.

[colburge]

I know that I would rather have a hard-copy of a book, but has your friend considered making it an option to purchase it electronically as an ePUB or PDF? Avoids postage all together.

Cheers

Col

[Dennis Leahy]

Hi Col,

I'm not sure if he has considered that or not. I'll ask him.

I did think of the possibility of him sending it to one of those "print-on-demand" printers that some authors are using. Rather than printing 1000 copies, or 10,000 copies, you just print one each time there is an order. The machines I saw (a few years ago, online) could print and bind a manuscript into a paperback book.

My friend's book is a 400 page hard-bound book with color photos and colored diagrams on most every page, so it would probably be expensive to print one copy.

But, an e-book option may be a smart idea for him.

Thanks!

Dennis

[martintaylor]

Hi Denis,

I produce one-off hard cover books with each custom build. I photographically document the build and then produce a book with the images and descriptions of the timbers used etc. I have also added a "Caring for your guitar" section at the back.

I use blurb.com. They aren't too cheap but they do a really good job. You can use their online production or you can use an existing PDF file.

This is one of my recent books

http://au.blurb.com/my/book/detail/4098688-mtg-130210

You can also make the book available as a PDF book, or an iPad version and customers can buy through the site.

[Dennis Leahy]

Wow, Martin, your book is a gorgeous value-added memento for the guitar owner. Brilliantly done!

Dennis

[Kim]

Now that's a real cracker of an idea Martin, well done.

I couldn't imagine that a single customer would forgo having a copy of their very own custom built guitar's birth certificate.

Cheers

Kim

[kiwigeo]

Now that's a real cracker of an idea Martin, well done.

I couldn't imagine that a single customer would forgo having a copy of their very own custom built guitar's birth certificate.

Cheers

Kim

1 Guitar: $1500
2.Birth Certificate: $1500
Total owing: $3000

[Lillian]

Dennis, my wife is the manager of a bookshop in Seattle. They routinely ship worldwide. They only ship USPS. There have been too many issues using any of the other guys.

Up to 4lbs they ship it First Class. Over 4 lbs, it has to be Priority.

I know that one point they were thinking about getting an onsite print on demand system, Espresso I think, so if you have questions, I can ask.