I have a canadian friend who wants to send me a couple of books she has finished reading but her local post office have told her that France will not allow importation of any secondhand booksfrom Canada. Can any one confirm whether this is true please,...... Thank you

that's what it says on the little green stickers German customs puts on parcels with books in them - but not all of them. And occasionally I get one with a stamp that says it HAS been checked and approved by customs -

does anybody have an idea how the customs people go about deciding which packages to check?

I have an inkling it might be the country of origin, but I only noticed this a little while ago and do not yet have a large enough sample ;-)

What are your experiences with this kind of thing?

I'm a new moocher living in New Zealand. I love the BM culture of international book-sharing, but living at the bottom of the world makes overseas sending that little bit harder.

My feeling is that the pleasure of mooching is completely worth it, but if any older and wiser antipodean members have advice about keeping postage costs down I would really appreciate it :)

I'd love to send more books international, but the ones that over seas moochers want are the heavy ones! While I have discussed this with a postal worker, and been on the website of USPS many times, I'd like to know what you, sage shippers, do to send anywhere at a reasonable price.

Sea Mail has been all but eradicated, yes, but a friend recently suggested, at the dinner table where I could not loudly disagree, that there was an international media rate, and continued on to say that it was a postal secret... I am intrigued.

Should I indeed invest in a postal scale? And continue to score those flat rate envelopes? Anything you say could be of service. (Tricks with other shippers, perhaps? Does DHL have a secret deal?)

Thank you!

People often expect books from overseas to arrive quicker than domestic mooches. This doesn't happen.
The only way that I am able to continue to send internationally is to use a book rate, only recognised at one post office in my locality. I therefore send when I can depending on my availability and the post office's opening hours.
Today I received notification that a book I sent, postmarked 1st February 2016, had arrived at its destination, together with another book to the same moocher posted five months later.
International shipping takes a while. Be patient. If you want the book quickly then please order online or find a bookshop locally.

I'm in France. I send worldwide.
I often attempt to mooch books from overseas, but many are rejected because it's too expensive for the book owner to send overseas. Does this rejection - from other people - have any impact on my BM "standing"?
Are "outgoing" rejected mooches counted in one's statistics?

I am now going to reject any mooch that does not provide a name as well as an address. French postal authorities do not accept packages with just an address.
Each time I have to ask for a name and wait for a response to my email, I potentially lose a week's time window for being able to ship the mooch.

Quick question about the international mooches and the mooch ratio. When do the "bonus points" for an international send get assigned? I've accepted 2 international request (and given the go ahead for a 3rd). I got 3 mooch points immediately following the mooch was initiated, however, once I sent the book I noticed I did not get bonus points within my mooch ratio? The books went from Canada to US. Do I get the extra points towards my ratio once the transaction is confirmed?

I'm not planning on ordering a bunch of books or anything, but I do want to keep my ratio healthy.

Postal rates went up in France on 1st January. Has anyone else encountered problems using the "livre" rate - http://www.laposte.fr/courrierinternational/index.php?id=173&pdt_id=#avantages?
I was told this afternoon that it only applies to businesses shipping books and can't be used by private invidividuals.
Apparently two books packed together count as a package not a letter, which doubles the cost of shipping two mooches to the States. I guess I'll have to pack them individually and see whether that's cheaper.

I know that there have been quite a few new users from the US after Paperbackswap started charging. I am one of them. I have been searching the forum archives on shipping internationally but haven't found much recent info. I would like to do it but I am not sure how plus I can't figure out how you can find out an approx. cost in order to make the decision if it is worth it. Can anyone in the US who does ship internationally help me out with some general information and pros and cons, etc. Thanks so much !

k, so I received an email from a non-Canadian bookmoocher asking to get 3 of my books for 6 points total

two of the three I've had up for two or three weeks (and are on three wishlists including the person in question)

one I have had up for like a week and is on 14 wishlists

said bookmoocher does have a positive moocher rating

what should I do?

Hello,

I am currently trying to find the cheapest way to send books internationally, and the German "Büchersendung" or "Buch und Presse International" is very inexpensive compared to sending parcels.

I recently sent my first Büchersendung to Canada and prepared a CN22 customs form, but when I asked the lady at the post office whether I needed it, she said that there is no need for that form. She also told me that I can't send a Büchersendung that is taped shut, but from the wiki page at http://wiki.bookmooch.com/index.php/Shipping_from_Germany I knew that wasn't true and after I told her she begrudgingly accepted the shipment.

Now I am wondering: Do I really not need a CN22 form or was the post office worker wrong about that too? Are there any experienced German bookmoochers that know?

Cheers,
naturaleast

Please, if you've requested a book internationally, be patient.
Most of us who ship internatinally necessarily send books by the cheapest possible rate, which is therefore much slower than airmail. Just because you haven't received a book a week after it was sent doesn't mean that the book wasn't sent or that it's lost in the post, and it's not necessary to nag the sender for proof of despatch either.
I've just happily marked as received three books that were sent to me from Malaysia, posted in September 2011. They've taken almost nine months to make the journey to France, but they're here now.

I've just done a comparison between posting a book (within France) in three different sets of packaging:
- reuse Amazon cardboard - 3.25 euros (total weight is 300g, over the 250g limit for economy rate, so the package has to go priority rate)
- reuse padded envelope - 3.25 euros (total weight is 260g, so it's still over the 250g limit for economy rate)
- wrap book firmly in opaque plastic film, tape well. Weight comes in at under 200g, and I can send the book economy rate post for 1.80 euros.

If I send the book in cardboard or a padded envelope, I'll be paying as much to send it domestically as to send overseas by economy post. That's a significant difference, especially when this is a book I mooched from overseas, therefore costing me three BM points and that I'm sending domestically for one point.

My "green" principles don't like having to use plastic film, but the Amazon carton has just gone into the recycling bin and I'll probably strip down the remaining padded envelopes and use the bubble pack plus film.

I don't mind occasionally being asked to mooch a second book to make it "worthwhile" for the sender to send to France, but today I drew the line at being asked to mooch four books, and therefore spending 16 points, in order to get one I wanted.
A quick check on Amazon France shows me that I could get that wishlisted book for 3 euros with postage.
It would probably cost me 2 euros to send that book back out internationally once I relist it on BM, the cost to me for that book seems to already work out at 5 euros.

Hi

I am considering returning to active use of bookmooch. I have found a good local alternative.

Here's the catch: shipping stuff abroad is really expensive for Swiss residents. Often, most of the time, actually, it's cheaper to buy a used book online (say, on amazon.com) and have it delivered directly to the moocher.

I remember doing this once or twice, but I think I asked the moochers for permission.

For clarification, here's how it worked: Someone from the US mooched a book from me. The cost of shipping from Switzerland was about 12$. The cost of the same book on amazon.com was 5$, shipping included. So I ordered the book and had it delivered to the person in US. It worked just fine. I selected one of the better maintained copies and paid a few extra ¢ to make sure the quality matched the one I had.

What do you think of that?
Would you mind if I did that to you?

Economy rate postage for overseas packages has disappeared from the online rate calculator. This effectively doubles the cost of sending books overseas from France.
Three points to bring a book in and many euros to send books out. There don't seem to be enough of us trading English books within France to make this worthwhile.

The French post office's online postal rate calculator - http://www.laposte.fr/Particulier/Utilisez-nos-outils-pratiques/Outils-et-documents/Calculez-le-tarif-de-vos-envois - is now showing that economy rate documents are being treated as parcels.
I suspect that fast economy envelope shipping from France has now been (or is being) discontinued, and that if economy rate overseas packages are being shipped with parcels, they will take longer.

There is no official reason why, but post in France seems to be held up somewhere at present!
I've not had the usual amount of business post this week, and our postman confirms that they are not receiving the usual amount of letters or parcels through the sorting office either, but that there is no indication of any official industrial action. I have business parcels that were sent two weeks ago with an expected two day delivery time, and they haven't yet reached their destination - the post office's tracking system only indicates that they're held up at a major sorting centre.
If you have sent a package to France recently and haven't had acknowledgement of delivery, please don't nag the recipient, it's possible the package is still in the delivery network. Likewise, if you're expecting a book from France, please be patient.

Hello, everyone! I'm new to BM, and so I have a few questions for Canadians who send either internationally or within Canada.

1) When sending to another country, do you mark the package as a gift?

2) Is it considered acceptable to send using a cheap method that doesn't give a tracking number?

3) What is the cheapest way to mail books within Canada? Any tips for packaging, sending options, etc. would be appreciated.

Thank you so much! I look forward to hearing from you. :)