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At some point in the next 6 weeks, I need to post a parcel to Australia. In that time, I think I'll be visiting 5 different European countries, and probably within a short bus ride of another 2! That gives rather a large number of options for posting.

One option is to spend quite a bit of time with google translate, trying to make sense of the various postal service websites, and hope that I can get a sensible + accurate price out of each of them. Another is to take the parcel with me each time, and visit the post office in each country, but that does have a big downside when I discover that 2 weeks and 3 countries ago was the cheapest...

Are there any websites (maybe EU ones?) that provide a comparison of postage costs for different European countries? And/or are there general guides to which EU countries have cheaper and which more expensive overseas posting? (I suspect I'm not the first, nor the last person wanting to post something to that bit of the world from the cheapest point on their European travels!)

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closed as off-topic by gerrit, Vince, user1712, uncovery, Rory Alsop Sep 8 '13 at 0:37

  • This question does not appear to be about traveling within the scope defined in the help center.
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is not about travelling, but about international shipping. – gerrit Sep 5 '13 at 18:20
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    @gerrit This question is about international shipping while traveling. That makes it on-topic for both travel.se and post.se. – Gilles Sep 5 '13 at 20:01
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    I am not sure many people wonder if it is cheaper to send it from a post office located 1000+km from their location. But to me, it is not clear what you expect. Is your parcel big? If not, I don't think the difference between 2 countries' price is that big. If it is a big parcel, carrying it across Europe will not be convenient and might be expensive. Last thing, several shiping companies operate in each country with different pricing for different types of parcels, so a relevant comparison is hard to provide. – Vince Sep 5 '13 at 20:49
  • It's too big and heavy for "letter" posting, small enough and light enough to not need a shipping company. Think a bunch of souvenirs, a few tshirts, a couple of books, that sort of thing. I suspect "small international parcel" in most countries will get it there, I just want to work out which country is best to post from! And my hunch is, quite a lot of people on a European tour may find themselves in a similar position with a kg or two of stuff to post home part way through – Gagravarr Sep 5 '13 at 21:28
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    As an example, posting my parcel from the UK to Australia looks to be about €5 seamail, €10 airmail. Assuming I can work the Croatian postal website correctly, seamail would be €24 and airmail €28! That degree of variety seems enough of a difference to make me want to investigate the cheapest option – Gagravarr Sep 5 '13 at 21:37
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Personally, I would try to ignore the normal postal officse. They are often quite expensive when it comes to posting a parcel. Often you don't have choice and then it actually doesn't matter in which country you post your parcel. Most public postal organization more or less use the same logistical infrastructure.

Another option would be the big guys, like DHL, FEDEX, etc. Still it costs.

Another alternative is go to a city where there is a large immigrant population originally from the country where you want to send your package to. Usually concentrated immigration groups cause a healthy parcel stream to the country of origin. This allows for quite lower postage rates then when sending it "traditionally", since different small businesses just rent container space in either a freighter or an airplane and are able to fill that space regularly. This company (you need google translate) will for example send a box of 160l in volume to Indonesia for only 60 euro. With sending by sea, it is all about volume and no weight. With airmail you pay per kg, but still the rates are rather low compared the the postage fees. The company mentioned earlier mainly caters an immigrant population originally from Suriname. They are able to send a package to Surinam for 4 euro per kg by airmail.

I would expect the largest Australian population in Europe would be in London, so my best bet would be that sending through the UK would be your best option for sending from an european country. In an slightly related question a london company is mentioned, that could be an interesting option for you as well.

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