Shipping Madness

Today's post is a rant. Why on earth is shipping so incredibly expensive in France? I surely must be spoiled by the US, but consider -

In the US, shipping boxes and all supplies are free from the Post Office. I would simply check regular orders and crates of free shipping boxes and tape would arrive at the door.

By contrast, in France we must buy our own boxes and tape (costs that must be passed on to the consumer).

Shipping in the US was by Express Mail, and usually cost around $8 for a well-padded pipe-sized box. This would get pipes to US buyers in usually 3 or 4 days.

Shipping in France is by normal mail, and costs 11-12 euros (roughly $14) for the same size box, which we've also had to pay for ourselves. While packages arrive to buyers in France and mainland Europe in 3-4 days, anything going internationally goes into a mystery grab bag.... It might arrive in 6 working days, it might vanish for three weeks. While, to date, we have not had anything disappear completely, there have been at least two occasions in three years where I have refunded buyers for apparently lost shipments, only to have said shipments arrive five weeks after shipping.

None of this, however, compares to the contrast between "fast" shipping here and in the US. Back home, it was pretty simple - you could ship something rush (for perhaps $20) and it would arrive in 2-3 days, or you could ship "overnight" and it would be guaranteed to arrive the next day, though (at the time) this was a very pricey option, often costing as much as $50 or more for a box.

Contrast this to the French PO, where our only option is Chronopost - a rip-off outfit if I have ever seen one. Buyers sometimes ask me if we can ship something "rush", and this is what I have to tell them. Shipping a pipe-sized box via Chronopost costs 83 euros, and the best time estimate they can give is delivery between 4 and 6 days. So, for the princely sum of over $100, one can ship a box that's guaranteed to arrive only a day or so slower than a package mailed by standard US mail for $8. UPS here is even worse - their estimate for the same-size box was 155 euros, with a delivery time of seven days internationally.

So, when buyers ask about shipping options and I just shake my head sadly and advise, "Better to stick with standard mail and be patient", this is the reason.