I am somewhat gobsmacked that the TSA hsa anything to do with your posting stuff. Perhaps it's the same here but AFAIK anyone can walk into a post office and in this case, scribble "printed papers" on the envelope and off it goes, whether it's one or 50 packets)
James,
I appreciate most sincerely your undying patience, along with everyone else’s--I really do.
Yes, you are quite right: anyone can essentially walk into a post office here, or there (wherever there may be), and ship a package of books.
If you were the only one ordering said books, I would have packaged the books in the identical fashion that I did; the package would weigh 6 pounds, 6 ounces, and measure 12 x 14 x 3 inches. I would drive to my post office, and wait on line (excuse me, “in queue”) until my turn came; lately, with staffing cuts, there would be 20 people ahead of me when I walked in, and my wait would be 20 minutes or more. There would only be 50% of the windows open.
They would either make me fill out some export paperwork off to the side, or accept what I might have done in advance. Because the package weighs more than 4 pounds, that requires different forms, and in quintuplicate, than say, a magazine or simple large envelope. They would offer me a variety of shipping methods, ranging in cost from USD $47.60 to $123.20…each. Repeat 39 additional times for the 40 packages in the shipment. Assume that on average, (some are larger with more than 2 books, some are smaller with 1) the rate would be this lowest amount and you’ll see that the total shipping cost for all my non-USA friends would be in excess of USD $2,000.00, as 7 of those packages were to distant Australia and New Zealand. Ouch. Part of the shipping scheme I used involved sending the USA packages via book rate or Media Mail, with the average cost being less than USD $5.00 per package.
What to do? Use a broker, or as our Post Office calls them, a “Postal Qualified Wholesaler”. Now I don’t exactly know how or why the relationships exist or have been established, but they are. The broker will consolidate the shipment with others from other more regular shippers, and offer the savings to me. The total shipping cost was about half that; since they do get into the US Postal Service here in the USA, they will be handled as US Mail as sure as if I had handed each package over the counter here in Novi.
http://www.brokersworldwide.com/http/about_usps.htmWhere does the TSA come in? When any package is received “blindly” (not face to face) or through a 3rd party, additional rules apply. Thankfully I had, due to previous shipping experience, been “prequalified” as a “known shipper” and am in the TSA database as such. That’s why the return address label indicates my name and the company “Cherry Hill One, LLC”, as that’s the name in the TSA database. This made the work a bit easier. I don’t make this stuff up. Want some fun? Read about it here:
http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/tsnm/air_cargo/programs.shtm The broker would not have accepted my business had I not been prequalified; no broker would. There simply wasn’t enough money to pay $2,000.00 for shipping either. After the book in digital form went to the printer at the end of October, and before it was delivered to me in finished form at the end of December, I had plenty of time to thoroughly research shipping means.
Be advised that the broker has the right to open and inspect each package; so does the USPS here before putting them on a plane to wherever; and finally, for probably customs purposes, your local postal system has the right to inspect the packages as well. Goodness knows what the packages will look like upon arrival, but I can assure you they were properly packaged here to protect your books.
Nonetheless, the packages are on the way to Chicago. They’ll arrive by tomorrow. On the weekend, they’ll be inspected by an on-site inspector of the USPS and cleared for shipment. If so cleared, they’ll be dropped into the USPS system at O’Hare airport no later than Monday, and then on the way to the recipients. I expect that for some reason, there will be nit-picking on the paperwork as that’s what the Post Office employees do the best above all else.
Every book was listed as a gift (it truly is) with a value of USD $10. I suspect most will clear customs w/o any issue. I also suspect that packages to places like Spain and the Czech Republic will somehow be delayed a bit and recipients will be charged something; that’s how those 3rd world governments work. Some recipients had me ship to a commercial address and that might raise an eyebrow at respective customs inspection points. To that, I cannot help.
I do indeed hope that by the end of January, each package will have been delivered. I thoroughly investigated many different shipping means and this was really the best. At one point I even considered removing the 7 packages destined for Canada, and driving them across the border myself (only 20 miles from here) and dropping them into Canada Post. There would have not been enough of a savings in order to do that, believe it or not. And, the only thing more difficult than a bulk shipping from here, is crossing our “friendly” border and explaining what all those packages are doing in the back seat…
...which might explain by the way, why Dr. Benz maintains a US shipping address, and Jordan also maintains a US shipping address! It sure makes life a lot easier, as they both know!
