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Comment by hbosch | Hacker News Reader

I bought a A1 sized picture frame from a french seller for around $50 on Amazon. It was a total pain getting an affordable frame in A1 size, because the best we can get easily in America is a 24x36" which is just far enough off to be unusable.

When it arrived, it had some damage to the acrylic and I wanted to return it. Amazon Support said they would reimburse me up to $20 for shipping it back, but when I took it to UPS they wanted $370 just to ship it back.

I have no idea how shipping costs are determined. I'm sure the seller didn't pay $370 to send it to me.

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Did you contact Amazon or the seller, and what was the outcome? You received a defective item and your out of pocket costs should be nothing. You should dispute the return costs with both Amazon and the seller, and the seller may tell you to dispose of the damaged item and refund you the purchase price.

You are better off finding a local framing shop to custom make something for you. They don't charge too much unless you opt for fancy frame material and matting.

> You are better off finding a local framing shop to custom make something for you.

Yes, local framing shops can make things in any size you want, it's what they do. And usually fairly reasonable, certainly less than the cost of international shipping.

I find them to be quite expensive. You can usually get a single 10 inch photo framed and matted for around $70 base around here.

I did a larger one (maybe 30" x 20") at Michael's with a nicer frame a few years ago and it ended up being almost $300.

I'd talk to some of the mail order frame places. I've used Frame Destination, and while they don't list metric sizes they'll let you spec custom imperial sizes with no premium at 1/16" precision (e.g. 23 5/16" x 33 1/16" is a bit closer). If you call they may be able to properly do metric sizes.

I find that price hard to believe. Has anybody else had an experience like this?

In my experience shipping prices from the US to EU are ludicrous. So much so that I'm surprised they have any business. This doesn't sound outside of the realm of possibility to me.

It was two decades ago, but when I lived in Germany it also seemed that they lost about 50% of the parcels that we sent between Germany and the US.

We send small A4 sized parcels to Germany quite a bit and often it never arrives, the same goes for France, if anything it gets lost more often in France. (shipping from New Zealand)

Bought some books in France and shipping to US was ~$10. It never arrived and contacted seller who sent another. A month later the 1st shipment arrives. So I contact the seller to let them know. They want it back and will cover the return shipping. So I go to USPS who informed me shipping to France was $90. At that rate it would be cheaper for me to fly with it, 2x25kg checked bags are a hell of a lot cheaper.

While I was living abroad my mom would send me care packages and I had no idea what it was costing her to ship it. I would send her aboriginal carvings or SE Asian cooking utensils all the time and it didn't cost nearly as much.

I recently returned a 13 inch laptop to Amazon from Hong Kong after they sent 2 and it was around $120 (reimbursed by Amazon - the original Amazon delivery charge was ~$18).

$370 did sound particularly egregious, but I just checked UPS' online quote site[1] and got a quote of $311-394 for a 5 pound, A1 sized package from California to Paris.

In my experience in Asia, Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. provide substantial discounts to customers with accounts, but one-off quotes to the US/Europe are typically very expensive.

[1] https://www.ups.com/mobile/quoteService

I recently returned a 13 inch laptop to Amazon from Hong Kong after they sent 2 and it was around USD120 (reimbursed by Amazon).

HK Post wants about H$350 to get a 3kg parcel from HK to France. That works out to about $45.

$370 did sound particularly egregious, but I just checked UPS' online quote site[1] and got a quote of $311-394 for a 5 pound, A1 sized package from California to Paris.

I'm not quite sure what A1 sized is (ISO A1 paper? Amazon A1?) but at 5 lbs USPS quotes between $60 and $130 to go from San Francisco to Paris. For international shipping from the US, the private companies will almost always be significantly more expensive and potentially leave you on the hook for expensive customs brokerage fees.

Around 24.5 x 33 inches. It might be the size kicking it up. I work in fairly large art sizes and prices go up really fast based on dimensions.

So ISO A1 then. I plugged in something like 24x33x5 as well as the Amazon A1 size (which is smaller) and got the same price range but with additional options for the smaller (Amazon A1) sized package. At that size, the weight is the determining factor at USPS (at least based on the rates I've seen) even though 24x33 is still considered an oversized package.

OTOH if you want to ship it express (Global Express Guaranteed — GXG in USPS speak) that comes out to around $265 (less if you pay online) and not all post offices will take GXG packages. $60 to $265 is the difference between a 1-3 business day expected delivery time and 6-10 business days.

I have. I left my Kindle on a plane in Germany while on vacation a few years ago and didn't realize until I was already on a different plane back to the US. I got a hold of at lost and found at the airport who said they had it and if I sent them a shipping label, they could mail it back to me.

When I started looking at different shipping options, UPS wanted about $107 to ship it back and FedEx was a similar price. I think I ended up using DHL which was the cheapest I could find at about $80, which still felt crazy to me.

I participate in reddit gift exchanges, and frequently get recipients in the EU. What would cost me ~$10-15 to ship in the states or somewhere in asia routinely costs north of $50 for European destinations. And these are small things, nothing like the size of a picture frame. The $300+ cost for the frame doesn't surprise me at all.

Depending on the destination, if you have a “______town” for that ethnicity (or a nearby one that they’re not at war with), they’ll have some shops that can do far cheaper rates by consolidating.

A polish shop near me can send things to most of W. Europe for far less than the post office can.

The Ukrainian credit union near me can send cash to anyone in Ukraine pretty cheaply.

I hadn't considered that at all. Thanks for the suggestion!

With USPS it will depend largely on how you send it. Priority Mail will be expensive (and fairly quick). A first class package (if you're within the limits) can be much cheaper if you don't mind the lack of tracking.

I mailed some 8x10s overseas in a rigid envelope and my friend swore up and down it would be too expensive ($30+). I think in the end it cost under $10 per envelope. Meanwhile international postcards from Germany were like 2€.

>Meanwhile international postcards from Germany were like 2€.

What are you talking about? I was just in Germany last year, and sent a bunch of international postcards for €0.90 each. That's the standard postcard rate for sending a postcard anywhere in the world. (It's €0.45 within Germany.)

Prices went up this year, and from my POV the German post was indecipherable. An international post card required two stamps. Deutsche Post is showing domestic postcards at 0.60€, but their postage calculator is showing international postcards at 0.95€. Fuck if I remember what I paid.

European here. Shipping from US can be insanely expensive. Once I had to pay $40 to ship a pen. I can totally believe the $370 figure.

Very much so all pathfinder role-players don't buy physical stuff from Piaso just wait and buy it from a UK wholesaler.

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