Cheap(er) international book/media shipping?

July 16, 2013 9:58 AM

I need to ship a bunch of books internationally; is there a better option than USPS M-bags?

I have (roughly) one large moving box full of books which I need to ship from San Diego to Stockholm, Sweden to a single addressee. Previously I've used a USPS M-bag for a smaller load, but the cost of shipping was not at all cheap (around $90, I think). The speed of shipment does not matter at all; the shipping can take months if necessary.

Is there some cheaper method?

posted by beerbajay to Travel & Transportation (3 answers total)

Used to be that there was a lower rate for shipping printed matter, since by definition it's so heavy. Hard to find non-business specifics on the USPS website; have you tried phoning or going to your local post office in person? They were really helpful when I needed to do the same from Eugene (Oregon) to France. The key term to use is "printed matter". There can't be anything else in the boxes (books, magazines, all OK; personal correspondence, not OK, and yeah they do check).
posted by fraula at 10:35 AM on July 16, 2013

Also look for the term "media mail", travels very low priority/slow. Not sure if it's international.
posted by sammyo at 12:39 PM on July 16, 2013

Response by poster: I could, theoretically, ship from Mexico, though this would probably be more trouble than it's worth (in the car for an hour, border crossing, etc). Scanning to PDF is not an option, since it's the physical books that matter in this case.
posted by beerbajay at 9:42 AM on July 17, 2013