How to get chocolate delivered to Leiden this week for cheap?
February 14, 2011 6:11 PM   Subscribe

How can I get a small amount of chocolate or similar delivered to a friend in the Netherlands this week?

A friend living in Leiden is sad. I would like to cheer her up. Ideally a chocolate bar, chocolate block, or small box of chocolates would arrive at her workplace for her sometime in the next couple of days. I also considered Tim tams, but they are even harder to find. I could put some chocolate in an envelope and mail it to her for around $10-15 (incl postage), and it would arrive... in two-three weeks. I will do this if I can't find another way, but she'll probably be happier before then anyway.

I have tried googling, but all I can find is places with minimum orders of 20 Euro, places with shipping/delivery costs of 15 Euro+, or places that only let you pay from a Dutch bank account, which I do not possess. (Tuckerbox.nl was looking great until we got to that step). I even looked at Etsy, but can't find anything local to the Netherlands, and am a bit suspicious of food ordered from Etsy, anyway.

I would like to pay around 10 Euro or less, but will go up to 15, including delivery, and am happy if the item delivered is a single chocolate bar or box of cookies. It can be delivered via regular post rather than courier.

Does anyone have any websites or other options to recommend? The website does not need to have an English option: I can read Dutch.
posted by lollusc to Shopping (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Never mind. I finally found somewhere. In case anyone else is looking for something similar, "Handy Candy" ships from the UK, so it will only take a few days, and it cost about 4 pounds including shipping, for a cream egg and a couple of small Cadbury's bars.

I'd still be interested in other solutions if anyone has one.
posted by lollusc at 7:08 PM on February 14, 2011


I was going to suggest the department store HEMA which has a great online store, but I think they may also require the Dutch iDEAL payment.

Amazon started selling food products in Europe recently, and carries chocolates, at least in the winter. Looks like right now the German site will ship with 1-3 day service for €3 or free if the order is over €20. I get things in 2 days after it's shipped, so usually 3 days after I order.

For internationally shipped items, you'd want to limit your choices to Amazon's own inventory as the third party sellers mostly don't ship abroad or make it very expensive. When you do a search, and then pick a store category you want to look in, you can restrict the search results to a specific vendor (i.e. Amazon only) in the left-hand column.
posted by mvd at 6:53 AM on February 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


P.S.: If you don't speak German and need to navigate Amazon.de (or any other website, also Dutch ones) you can get Google Translate to translate most of the page for you--works well enough.
posted by mvd at 6:55 AM on February 15, 2011


Response by poster: Oh, Amazon is a GREAT idea! Thank you! It never occurred to me to use it for anything but books, even though I already have an account on the German site. (I do speak German).
posted by lollusc at 4:35 PM on February 15, 2011


Response by poster: Or not. I just tried to order chocolate from there (and it was definitely from Amazon's own inventory, not from a third party) and I got the message at checkout that the item I had chosen could not be delivered to the address I had chosen. I got the same message for all the different types of chocolate I chose. I couldn't find anything in the Amazon.de info about delivery restrictions that says "Lebensmittel" are excluded from shipping to the Netherlands, but it's not a category that is noted in their list of what they DO ship, either. Gah.

And yeah, then I tried third party items, and although some would ship, I couldn't find anything under 15 Euro shipping costs.

Thanks for the idea, though.
posted by lollusc at 4:53 PM on February 15, 2011


Aw, foo! Must be some weird regulatory thing.
posted by mvd at 5:45 AM on February 18, 2011


« Older Wherever I have my dogs, that's my home   |   Dead Fish: Make It Yummy Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.