Sending a lens abroad?

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Omar
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So, I need to send a lens abroad (within Europe), but I’m struggling to find a courier that will insure the item or doesn’t place it on a list of prohibited items (seems like they all do!). Ideally, I don’t want to be spending £45, which is the best I’ve come up with so far.

Anyone got any advice or recommendations? :)
 
Possibly another that @StewartR could be of help with?

There's a similar thread somewhere.
 
So FedEx wont send a lens to Europe insured ? Well well, what has the world come to......
 
“Glass, or anything containing glass” is what seems to be tripping me up.

To be clear, prohibited in terms of insurance, not in terms of items they can’t send!
Ahhh, my misunderstanding. I was thinking of batteries and stuff they wont ship for safety, thats what had me wondering about a lens.
Thanks.
 
If you find something I'm interested to know.

Then lens i'd be selling is £3000, and it needs to go to Norway - I'm thinking I might just take a weekend break and deliver it in person.
 
Possibly another that @StewartR could be of help with?
Thanks @Nod. Happy to try...

So, I need to send a lens abroad (within Europe), but I’m struggling to find a courier that will insure the item or doesn’t place it on a list of prohibited items (seems like they all do!). Ideally, I don’t want to be spending £45, which is the best I’ve come up with so far.
You say you are "struggling", but have you found any that will insure the parcel? If you have, and that figure of £45 is fully insured, I think you should take it. These things aren't cheap.

You're right to observe that insurance for goods in transit is difficult and expensive. I use DPD to ship about 10,000 items per year, so I get a preferential negotiated tariff compared to the man in the street as a casual user, but even so the insurance is prohibitively expensive. The price is so high that it implies a break-even rate of about 1 loss in 100 consignments, or about 100 per year for my volume. However my experience is the loss rate is no more than a small handful per year, if that - for example, so far in 2018 they've only lost one item - so I don't bother with the insurance and I come out well ahead. Of course, that's because I have the large numbers on my side. If I were just sending one item as a one-off, I couldn't afford to skip the insurance.

If you could provide more details of the size, weight, value and destination of your parcel, I might be able to offer better advice. But the bottom line is that £45 fully insured is pro ably a good deal.
 
Then lens i'd be selling is £3000, and it needs to go to Norway - I'm thinking I might just take a weekend break and deliver it in person.
You've got a major issue there because Norway is outside the EU. Although your buyer wouldn't have to pay any import duty on goods coming from the EU, he would have to pay VAT which is 25%, plus a customs handling charge.

Your buyer might be willing to import the lens illegally and try to evade the charges. (I don't know whether they have the same casual attitude towards illegal imports in Norway as we do here.) But if you want the lens to be insured in transit, you'll need to declare its value, and that makes it impossible to evade the import charges.
 
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Thanks @Nod. Happy to try...


You say you are "struggling", but have you found any that will insure the parcel? If you have, and that figure of £45 is fully insured, I think you should take it. These things aren't cheap.

You're right to observe that insurance for goods in transit is difficult and expensive. I use DPD to ship about 10,000 items per year, so I get a preferential negotiated tariff compared to the man in the street as a casual user, but even so the insurance is prohibitively expensive. The price is so high that it implies a break-even rate of about 1 loss in 100 consignments, or about 100 per year for my volume. However my experience is the loss rate is no more than a small handful per year, if that - for example, so far in 2018 they've only lost one item - so I don't bother with the insurance and I come out well ahead. Of course, that's because I have the large numbers on my side. If I were just sending one item as a one-off, I couldn't afford to skip the insurance.

If you could provide more details of the size, weight, value and destination of your parcel, I might be able to offer better advice. But the bottom line is that £45 fully insured is pro ably a good deal.

No worries, I’ll PM you. I did have a look at DPD though - do they have no issue with lenses, then? Glass is listed as a prohibited item on their website, but not lenses, per se. £49 is what the charge to have that insured and sent!

Totally understand where you’re coming from, for you that makes complete sense. Shame that just isn’t applicable for me though [emoji1]
 
I did have a look at DPD though - do they have no issue with lenses, then? Glass is listed as a prohibited item on their website, but not lenses, per se.
Good point. DPD's exclusions aren't defined terribly well. Their list of exclusions says:
"..... jewellery (including watches),..... glass or any articles (or part of them) that are made up of glass, porcelain, earthenware or other similar materials,.. ... televisions or monitors with screens larger than 37", body parts or human remains, living or dead animals..... "

But you have to ask, if they really mean to exclude any items which are partly made of glass, then why do they bother specifically mentioning watches? And what's all that about 37" TVs? Surely a 37" TV is partly made of glass? I think the reference to glass is meant to catch things like our fruit bowl which is glass with a silver rim, or light bulbs perhaps, but is not meant to apply to things which have glass as a component. At least, that's what I'd argue if I got into a dispute with DPD that went legal. (Though that's unlikely because, as I mentioned previously, I don't rely on DPD's in-transit insurance.)

I've never quite worked out whether the vague and ambiguous definitions are deliberate or just incompetent.
 
Anyone got any advice or recommendations? :)

Don't send glass, no carrier will insure it.

There is one exception, eBay's GSP (Global Shipping Programme) will cover glass (assuming you can get it to them safely) but you need to sell the item through eBay so it's probably not much help but there really aren't many alternatives.
 
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