Differences between Shipping Couriers - International Shipping

[pmaraziti]

Hi Guys,

I bought a nice 2nd hand pentubuzz in US and now a friend of mine in Ohio has it. I'm based in Spain and I usually travel often there, but this time will be only not before February.

I'd like the bass to be shipped to Spain before then. I consulted differrent sites and basically there's a big difference between USPS and Fedex/UPS in terms of money, about 200$.

Do you have any suggestion as far as:

1. Shipping Courier Selection
2. What could make up the big difference (I cannot manage to understand that... e.g. could it be that Fedex/UPS include customs fee ?)
3. Documentation necessary and how to minimize charges at custom (can I pretend that is a gift from that friend of mine)?

Thanks a lot in advance, Paolo

[morf]

Hi,

For every bass I buy in the US I always use the United States Postal Service. USPS Global Air Parcel is the cheapest method (around 100USD for a bass in HS case) and it usually makes it through customs without me having to pay any customs tax.

UPS, FedEx, Chronopost, DHL will make sure you pay the customs tax when the bass is delivered to your door. None of their prices include customs taxes in them, they're just real expensive.

If you want to minimize customs taxes, there are a few ways to do so:

1) You can declare the bass to be of small value (but your insurance if you take one will only be worth the value you declared). I've done it before and everything went fine.

2) You can ask the person shipping it to insure it for the real value but not write any value on the customs form and instead decalre it as a gift or a commercial sample, thats worked for me before too.

This worked for me, but I'm french, and Ive no idea how Spanish customs will handle things.