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Just curious, are there any extra hoops to jump through when shipping a pipe internationally?

Yes.

Hope this helps.

Rad

Also- what might those extra hoops be? Thanks for the clarity Rad.

The Smoking Yeti wrote:Also- what might those extra hoops be?

It involves writing.

Hope this helps.

George

stop waving your dicks and help the man!!

You have to fill out a customs form. The post office will give you the proper forms and will be less than happy to explain. Also your customer will be very happy if you write gift on the form, it may save them a lot of money for the customs charges they have to pay to receive their package. Hope this helps

the form is not a big deal. sometimes the post office people even fill it out for you (electronically) and you just sign it.
One time it took 6 weeks for a pipe to arrive in Germany, so that's cool.
You can (for no extra charge) track packages until they leave the states
Even if you declare your pipe as a gift you have to determine a $ value and if that's higher than, 25 euros for Germany for example, the customs office might make the customer pick up the package personally, open it in front of Officer Important and have him pay customs duty and sales tax. Shipping costs get taxed too, which makes sense, right?

Sorry for waving my dick.

If you have an internet account with USPS (if not, sigh up), you can print them all out online and even arrange for your carrier to pick it up. The forms are self explanatory.

I always declare it as "Other" and list it as a "Smoking Pipe".

Postage is also higher.

Rad

And for Pete's sake don't ever ship a thing internationally other than registered and insured, everything else can, and will, get lost.

Jens

Regarding international mail in general, USPS tracking only works to where the package is handed off to the receiving country's postal system, and is responsible only to that point. After that it falls into a black hole. Make SURE your customer understands that before shipping. I always get an acknowledgement in writing (email) that they do.

Also, some countries' postal services are damn good, while others are a joke. Mexico is a total crap shoot, for example, while The Land Where Sasquatchi Roam Freely gits 'er done reliably. (Sometimes slowly, but reliably)

LatakiaLover wrote: (Sometimes slowly, but reliably)

ill be honest, its always slow.

Jos wrote:And for Pete's sake don't ever ship a thing internationally other than registered and insured, everything else can, and will, get lost.

Jens

This is the best advice!!!

I have shipped 74 international packages so far this year and have had to eat the cost of products on a few orders since the other countries postal system screws it up and it's lost.

USPS labels are not trackable if the number is LJ123456789US, or anything that starts with 'L'. It must start with a 'C' in order to be trackable.

USPS large video flat rate boxes are a flat fee of 23.95 to anywhere in the world, but the downfall is the box cannot be obtained at the post office, you have to order from the USPS website (all boxes are free and delivered to your door for free). The other downfall to the large video boxes is that they are only 2" thick.

I highly recommend using USPS Express Guarenteed Mail for shipping pipes. It costs a small fortune, but is the safest and quickest way of shipping.

Vermont Freehand wrote:
I highly recommend using USPS Express Guaranteed Mail for shipping pipes. It costs a small fortune, but is the safest and quickest way of shipping.

Yes! I use Global Express Mail for international shipments. It's traceable and insurable. Usually it tells you where the package every step of the way until it's delivered.

Rad

It seems like FedEx would do better for shipping internationally; I assume they'd be able to track it into the other country most of the time rather than handing it off to the local P.O. Anyone have experience with this? Or is it just prohibitively expensive?

Tracking is a must for something like a pipe, insurance I would say is optional. It really depends on how much you ship and the likelihood of something going wrong. I ship about a hundred boxes a year with tracking but the basic (included) insurance which would cover about 1/4 of the value of a pipe. Insurance to cover the full cost of a pipe would be an extra £3. Now in the last 4 years I have not had to make an insurance claim so I have saved approximately £1200 in shipping costs, enough to pay for several pipes.
Now if you take this risk then that is up to you, for the part time/hobbyist maker the risk probably isn't worth it as it would take decades to see a saving and those pipes are worth all the more for your small yearly turnout but if you ship a lot then you might like to think about it logically.


Oh and just to clarify, if I am shipping several pipes for a retailer for example, or if the box is going to someone/somewhere I don't quite trust then I will pay the extra insurance. This tends to only be a few times a year though.

Most of mine is international. Don't know how easy/difficult it is from the US, but over here it is no problem. DHL and other courier companies are insanely expensive, so I use the local normal postal service, with tracking number of course.
And yes, as soon as the parcel get to the the destination country, the tracking number change to a local number. I suppose it's just one of those unexplainable redtape bureaucratic things. Have had some customers going into panic mode when that happens, so yeah, explain it!