Fellow-listers,
the United States Postal Services recently changed their rules on
international shipping, notably for printed matter.
I gathered some info on this I’d like to share. It may be of interest for
those of you outside the US, who buy stuff on E-bay etc.
For those who this is of no concern: please delete this mail and accept my
apologies for wasting your bandwidth.
The new rules can be found on the USPS website:
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub51/pub51.pdf (description of postal
categories and their rules)
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub51/51tblb.pdf (weight vs. rate per
category)
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub51/51tblc.pdf (id. plus country
listings)
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub51/51tbld.pdf (country listings to check
rate group)
I’d like to emphasize the new rules concerning the so-called M-Bags: this is
a category for sending printed matter up to 66 pound, which can be used to
pay per shipped pound.
They used to have a bottomweight of 11 pounds for this, but now they let go
of that, although you still have to pay for that minimum of 11 pounds (even
when sending less). This would, for example, translate to something like
$9.90 for surface
shipment to Holland (class 3 destination), assuming the book shipped weighs
11 pound or less.
To my knowlegde this is the cheapest way of sending printed matter weighing
more than, say, a magazine.
Note that this usage of the M-Bag is not a well-known option in some local
US post offices,
so you may have to inform an E bay seller about this system, otherwise they
might send it as (much more
expensive) parcel post.
I hope this information is of use to some of you.
Maybe a lister from the US can add something to this or perhaps make some
corrections.
Best regards, Peter ('61 ots).