Shipping a pedal to the US

builttospill

Basically I've had a couple of offers on a pedal I've got up for sale on Reverb. Can anyone recommend a decent insured tracked service? is there anything else I should be aware of? taxes, customs charges etc?  pedal has value so would need to be fully insured, any help greatly appreciated 

simonk

Royal Mail International Tracked with the appropriate level of insurance usually works for me.

ICBM

Forget the insurance, it isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If you can't afford to risk losing it, don't send it internationally.

Any taxes will be paid by the recipient. You just need to fill out a form/sticker with a valuation.

johnhe

ICBM said:

Forget the insurance, it isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If you can't afford to risk losing it, don't send it internationally.

Any taxes will be paid by the recipient. You just need to fill out a form/sticker with a valuation.

I find it hard to agree with this. I once posted a Mesa Subway Blues, which went missing in the mail. Luckily for me it was insured. Royal Mail paid up £500 really quickly, so the insurance was worth a lot to me in that case.

I've shipped stuff to the states several times, and I always used my local post office with a tracked, signed for service. From memory it cost about £10.

timhulio

£12.50 usually for a pedal. I use Royal Mail international tracked + signed for the USA. Because I build the pedals all I could claim in the event of them going missing is the cost of components so I never insure them. That said, they very rarely go astray, except occasionally to sit in customs for a while.

builttospill

Hi all thanks for your advice, my concern is that the item i'm thinking of sending is a vintage item with considerable value, I don't have a receipt for the pedal so worried insurance won't cover item.   

ICBM

johnhe said:

I find it hard to agree with this. I once posted a Mesa Subway Blues, which went missing in the mail. Luckily for me it was insured. Royal Mail paid up £500 really quickly, so the insurance was worth a lot to me in that case.

That is astounding. Seriously, I've never heard of anyone pursuing a successful claim for loss in international shipping before. Usually the shipper just denies responsibility once it's left the UK.

I agree with timhulio that the loss rate is very small - I also work for a mail-order company, and the rate is about 1% I think -but I would still never send anything I couldn't afford to lose just in case I was the 1% that day...

Kylef

Might be worth looking at interparcel.com for a few quotes from couriers too. 

4114Effects

Royal Mail is fine. I've shipped well over 100 pedals to the USA last year and not had a single one fail to arrive.

 Just fill out a small customs sticker declaring the value and send "International tracked and signed". Costs around £12.50 for your average pedal.

UnclePsychosis

I sent a Royal Mail International Tracked/Signed parcel to Italy just before Christmas and 24hours later it was in the USA. 

Such an efficient service, and such helpful customer complaints people. I'm their biggest fan*. 









*warning: post may contain sarcasm 

MattBanshee

Just don't make the mistake that Heavy Electronics allegedly made when they started shipping their "Radio Havana" pedals - by writing the description on the shipping form, US customs got very, very interested as they believed they were actually sending parts to Radio Havana in contravention of the Cuban trade embargo!