Shipping shock!

[Denis]

A guy in Germany bought my Cowpoke and asked what shipping would be. I told him a bass was just shipped to me from NL for $158 but that I'd check.
Weight: 13lbs give or take.
Length of case: 55"
Width: 19.5"

Quotes were:
Fedex: $265
UPS: $325
US Postal Service: choice of $76.80 (6-10 day) or $105.50 (5 days).

Guess how the Cowpoke will make it's way to Germany?

[OldManC]

USPS is BY FAR the best way to ship to Europe...

[Dave W]

True for standard shipping, and yet I don't understand why. IIRC sending Fedex overnight is only slightly more expensive than standard.

[Hornisse]

The USPS has restricted its insurance rates for some countries.  Take Germany for instance. You can only insure an instrument for $500 maximum value.  I found this out after I sold my '66 Jazz bass which luckily arrived with no problems.

[ilan]

I'm not the least bit surprised. When buying a bass from the US I know shipping will be around $300. Unless it's a bolt-on bass and the seller agrees to remove the neck and send it in a smaller box with USPS.

[Denis]

Yeah, $500 is what I'm putting on the Cowpoke for insurance when I send it. I put $500 on the Tele I sent to Chicago via Fedex. THAT only cost me $14 for 2-3 day shipping! The disparity in pricing caught me off guard.
All this said, I think Rob hooked us up on shipping the BaCHbirds, considering the extreme length of the things.

[uwe]

There is an important difference: Fedex and UPS will get the bass through customs for you, pay the VAT (in Germany 20%), deliver the bass to your doorstep and then charge you in the aftermath for the customs invoice. USPS just delivers to the customs office and there you will have to pick up the bass yourself and get it through customs and the affiliated red tape. Up to 200 bucks more is a hefty charge for that type of service, but you shouldn't be comparing apples to oranges.

And there is one other big dif: USPS takes about three weeks (the "5 days" is a blatant lie and that only means that it will reach the customs storage facilities where it will then sit until they inform you by snail mail and let you in during their inconvenient business hours, they close at 4 pm at the latest Mo to Thurs and on 2 pm on Fri), UPS and FedEx between 2-5 days.

I really have no preference between the two (and leave choice regularly to the seller's convenience): USPS is cheap, slow and inconvenient (getting a bass out customs myself will regularly cost me two hours at least, they are located in the boondocks), the other two are fast, expensive and comfortable. It's like comparing a youth hostel to a four star hotel, both offer you a place to sleep, but that is where the similarities stop. That said, the people at the customs office know me well by now ("Another guitar, Herr Hornung?) and are always genuinely nice to me, trust me ("We don't need to see it.") and sometimes I even like to go there!

Cheapest shipping I ever had was a Victory shipped from the US for 30 bucks - it came per ship and it took three months, but it did arrive!!!  

[OldManC]

Uwe, it's good to know those differences (which I wasn't aware of at all). Thanks!

[eb2]

I have started using the post office exclusively for the stuff I send to the former Roman Empire and their barbaric neighbors.  I will send vintage audio gear and vinyl, and more often than not the Flat Rate Priority International boxes hold a lot and do it cheaper than boxing it yourself.  When I do buy an oversized box for tube stuff, it is still cheaper than Fed Ex, UPS or DHL.  And never a loss.  I avoid a few places altogether - Indonesia primarily - and supposedly the Italians are getting to be problematic both on customs hassles and the suggestion that postal employees are record collectors. Ahem.  Maybe Corsica too, but I don't know.  At any rate (PUN!) I have shipped vintage audio gear as far as Moscow without a scratch via USPS.  That was for a mere fraction of the costs via UPS and FedEx, and it arrived about the same time frame.  I have only sent guitar stuff to France.  USPS, no problems.

And Uwe is right - shipping by ocean freight is very cost effective, but the length of time tends to put a scare in the shorts for most people.  It pays to load up on silica gel too.  If you are buying Japanese collectible LPs, that is a sure fire way of getting your stuff cheap from Japan.  If you are selling by ebay though this extends the wait period into the danger zone for making any claim for fraud, so the buyers tend to avoid this.  As a seller you would hate to put yourself into that situation as well.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

This is the reason many sellers don't ship overseas from America.

[Hornisse]

I shipped a Stingray 5 bass with the neck and body shipped separately to Argentina and it took 6 days with USPS including the customs stay.  I once shipped a Rickenbacker to France using FedEx and received the bill from FedEx for the customs fees.  Same deal with a bass to Italy, only the Italian was nice and paid the bill whereas the Frenchman told me where to put the bill.  I've only used USPS since then. 

[Big_Stu]

+1 with dismantling a bolt on neck guitar into a smaller package. I had a friend Ebuy a Gretsch Bo Diddley for me a few years ago as the seller would only ship to USA. Then when I came over to NYC a few weeks alter I took it apart & shipped it in a nice compact box. It cost $72 USPS from USA to UK.

(Don't know if it's true but a guy I know in the UK always does this to guitars or removes the tubes.valves from amps & ships them separately. He then labels the package as "electrical equipment, not working, requires repair". He swears the customs don't charge so much duty that way".)

[Highlander]

(getting a bass out customs myself will regularly cost me two hours at least, they are located in the boondocks)

(joking aside - honest statement) In your line of work, two hours COULD cost...

[Deathshead]

did anyone try DHL? At my old job I used to ship a set of heavy aluminum car wheels to Australia and it took 1-2 days tops,
and they also took care of all the customs arrangements.  DHL was the best shipping internationally.

[Aussie Mark]

This is the reason many sellers don't ship overseas from America.

Why not?  The seller isn't paying for shipping.  Is it just laziness?

With the US$ in the shitter, not shipping overseas is doing yourself out of cashed up people from other parts of the world who see current US used instrument prices as absolute bargains.  Hence, they are quite happy to pay more for shipping.