Hello everyone. I’m new to this forum and have a question for any americans that may have migrated to Switzerland and tried to ship a few boxes versus a whole container worth of stuff which is all I couls scour up searching the forum.


There’s a possibility that next year (2011) I may find myself in Switzerland for an extended period of time. I’d be migrating lightly (probably get most items on the plane flight that I need) but I would like to bring some of my books if possible plus a few other items. Maybe 3 boxes tops. No more than 50 lbs. However probably too expensive to pay for on a plane (may be wrong about that).


So the question is this. I can either ship the books or possibly just rebuy the ones I need on a European equivalent like amazon.com’s uk version.
For instance, books weigh a lot so the shipping can get pretty expensive. I did a quick calculation on one box at 30 lbs with USPS and it was like $120. Not bad. But UPS was like $300+ and DHL seemed expensive too.



Fwiw, I don’t need the boxes 3day – 1 day overnight. Going slow is fine for me if it saves some money. So are there better ways (e.g. a better shipment method or provider) to ship the books / 3 or 4 boxes worth of stuff over? I already searched the forums and I don’t need a container or anything. Just the best method to ship like 4 boxes tops.


The other alternative is to just leave the books at home or sell them and then rebuy over amazon.uk or something similar. Since I don’t use any of the European amazon sites, wondering if anybody there could give me some info based on their own experience there. Can I pretty much find the same English books I have now on amazon.uk (do they have the same selection) and are they generally the same price taking European shipping into consideration to Switzerland.



Also, I think there is a swiss amazon.com but I imagine it’s solely german. If not can I buy the same assortment of English books from it and somehow save on the shipping costs vs buying from the UK.


Hope that makes sense.
Thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light!


PS if anybody knows anything about shipping a guitar overseas, that would be great too.

Don't know about shipping, but for rebuying the books, make sure you check out Book Depository (free shipping, low prices!). Either:
www.bookdepository.com
or
www.bookdepository.co.uk

There are some price variations between the two, depending on which books are listed at the moment ...

Have you considered eBooks as well? You can get quite a lot of the classics as free eBooks ... so far I haven't bought any, still working my way through the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (not all available, though) & Rudyard Kipling ... heaps of reading right there, for no money down!

Amazon has www.amazon.co.uk as well.

A cheap alternative to shipping I don't know. Do you really "need" these books? They get really heavy when moving.


You can deduct these costs as moving costs on a tax return.

One thing I've discovered is that shipping individual boxes from the US to Zurich is pretty expensive - almost everything is sent by air today, so the cheap 'slow boat to China' options are gone. Last Christmas I sent a box a little larger than a xerox paper box that weighed about 15 lbs., it cost $160!

I suggest you get everything together and send a container. FYI the US post office was cheaper than UPS or FedEx.

FYI, Amazon in Germany (.de) has a nice section of English books and ships for free to Switzerland, I get all my books there. Books here are outrageously expensive, a new normal size paperback is about 30 CHF.

Hope this helps!

It costs thousands to ship a whole container. When you have just a few boxes to send, it will often end up being put in a not full container, of the forwarding freight company ( or which ever company they forward onto.)

ANother option, which has sometimes been cheaper for me, sometimes not, is to get a quote on the cargo rate of the airline you are going to fly with. THis is cheaper than the unaccompanied luggage rate. I have actually had my boxes still arrive on the same plane as me, and once it arrived before me.

ANother thing that makes a difference in the price is whether you are shipping door to door, depot to door, depot to depot. I have saved money at times, by taking my boxes to the freight forwarder, and have definitely saved money in most countries by dealing with the customs and picking the boxes up from the airport myself. Dealing with foreign customs at airports is a rather interesting process, though you may need to allow a couple of hours to do it. I managed to pick up my 4 boxes and kayak at the Basel airport, without speaking any German except a few apologies. Import and handling charges were about 50CHF, which had saved me over 200chf that had been in the original depot to door quote.

Regarding the guitar: if it is one of your carryones, I Know that airlines ( BA< Swiss Air, at least) allow music instruments to be carried on board as fragile handluggage. Let the airline know in advance, as it may need to have space kept for it ( mine travelled business class :-). If you are travelling with UNited, have a look at this . It really happened to the singers treasured Taylor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&feature=related

My husband and I exhausted every option when moving our small (yet more than we could cram into suitcases) shipment last August from Portland to Zurich. Here is what we did and what I suggest for you, too.

1). What airline are you flying? We flew Continental and they allow boxes as checked baggage. We checked numerous boxes (up to 70 lbs each) and it was cheaper than shipping. The only catch is that the airline won't be held responsible for damages to items in boxes. So be sure to pack carefully.

2). If you must ship, use the United States Postal Service Flat Rate International Priority Mail Boxes. Check prices at www.usps.com. It works out to be the cheapest. DO NOT USE FedEx, UPS or DHL! FedEx would have been about $300 per box for us and the kicker is that you are charged on arrival! At least 20-40 CHF per box.

3). Consider how long you are staying and how costly it will be to send all of these things back. Postage in Switzerland is not cheap and you will also accumulate things while you are here. It is a tax deductible moving cost, but if you're not staying more than one year, then I doubt you will not be able to make the deductions for both moves.

4). Book Depository (as mentioned by others) is a great resource and I've had positive experiences with www.amazon.de. The shipping was reasonable and I was not charged tax on arrival for the packages from either of these sources. Naturally, amazon.de is in German, so if you don't read German, search first on amazon.com, copy the ISBN and then do a paste and search on amazon.de. It will pop right up!

Good luck! What brings you to Switzerland??

Check with your airline about the guitar. Don't know if you can take it with you on the plane, or buy it a seat (if it's valuable). If you have to check it, you might want to invest in a good hard shell case, loosen the strings ( but be careful if you have a moveable bridge), pack bubble wrap around it and mark it fragile.

wow. i'm impressed with all of the info provided.

i didn't realize planes had cargo rates but it sounds like that is the best way to go for what i want to do. i never heard of bookdepository either so thanks for that tip.

as i stated, i had done cursory checks with usps, ups, dhl, and fedex and i appreciate that someone above helped confirm what i had also found which is that usps was by far the cheapest of the lot. i guess that's not saying much though considering the rest of the lot were utter ripoffs

i appreciate the information related to planes on guitars. back in the day, it was never questioned if you wanted to bring a guitar on a plane free of charge. but that universally changed 10-15 years ago. or so i thought. biff are you saying that both BA and Swiss air allow you to carry on gits or that only Swiss does (couldn't tell if the greater sign had some special connotation in your post)? and fwiw, i would never check my guitars or buy a seat for one. i don't trust them being checked and it would probably cost about the same to just buy a new one (though i'm sure swiss prices are exhorbitant).

thanks again to all that posted.