International Shipments

When shipping to addresses outside the US we use the USPS Priority International service. The USPS carrier is very good at getting a package to local Customs in the destination country — usually within 5 business days. From there the package goes through local Customs and then transitions to the local postal service for final delivery. Once a package is dropped-off with local Customs then it is out of our hands. Each country is different in terms of how quickly and efficiently international shipments are handled. For reasons unique to each country and only known to local Customs, delays may occur that last anywhere from 1 – 4 weeks. All international shipments must be processed through local Customs and additional fees may apply. It is assumed the customer will be familiar with their local Custom policies and procedures.

Carriers such as FedEx, UPS and DHL can expedite processing through Customs — but it comes at a cost. Shipping the same package using one of those carriers costs around $150 USD, compared with around $40 USD for the USPS. Most international customers are unwilling to pay a shipping cost that high — which is why we settled on USPS.

One alternative is to use a parcel forwarding service like Parcel Zoom (www.ParcelZoom.com). They provide a US address for us to ship to. Once they receive the package from us they will notify you. You then arrange carrier delivery from ParcelZoom to your final destination address using Fedex, UPS, DHL, etc. Their Fedex, UPS, DHL rates are much lower than ours since they are a volume shipper.