A few days ago we had a customer walk in and drop off a package to ship to France. Rachel’s request was simple: as a cultural exchange to her online friend Celeste, she wanted to send over a box of Singaporean snacks.

Rachel came well prepared. She bought a huge box (30cm by 31 cm by 24 cm) and packed 1kg worth of Mamee noodles and Meiji Hello Panda biscuits into it. To prevent the items from moving around and getting damaged during the shipping process, she filled the remaining space with stuffing. Just like that, Rachel had already spent $10 on packing.

Box : $2 Tape : $4 Stuffing : $4

There are two kinds of weight that matter when shipping packages overseas: volumetric weight and total weight. To break it down for the layman, volumetric weight refers to the space the package takes up when shipping, while total weight is simply the combined weight of the items and packing.

When do these weights matter? Rachel’s total weight of the package which includes the stuffing – 1.5kg. But her volumetric weight – 5.6kg.

Most shipping corporations (i.e. FedEx, DHL) will take 5.6kg as the chargeable weight of the shipment, so the price of shipping some snacks over to France came to $70.35. Together with her initial cost of $10 on packing materials, Rachel’s total cost is now $80.35.

We offered our repacking services to her. The snacks were transferred to a compact box and the total shipping fee dropped to $39.45.

The lesson learned here is that shipping overseas can be tricky, but we’re here to help. Rachel’s preparedness actually cost her more instead of cutting down the price. With our team of experts, JustShip provides safe, secure and cost-effective packing from only $3. We offer the most customer-friendly rates for a friction-free shipping experience. Got a parcel? JustShip with us today!