That Couldn't Have Been Cheap!

I purchased a stamp collection on ebay late Thursday morning. It just arrived today, effectively 2 business days later.

20 pounds (9 kilograms) shipped from the Netherlands via UPS.

Just for giggles I went to UPS.com to see what it would cost me to ship the same package from here to there.

For the "UPS Saver" rate, which is what was used, it came up with a price of US$297.01.

Now I realize that businesses can get discounts of 30-40% off the published or retail rates, but even at that, it sure as heck ain't cheap!

I'm thinking a return is out of the question.

I do hope that order was in the $several hundred range to make that shipping worthwhile.........which cost BTW you did not share with us.

The collection was listed as "$X with Free Shipping" so my only concern in making an offer was the net delivered cost. However much it cost to ship was not germane since it wasn't an add-on cost. It was only upon receiving the package this quickly and feeling the weight of the parcel that I decided to check out how much it might have cost the seller to ship.

Rev... you are quite correct, my friend... just about everything we,
as a business, ship from ebay sales ~ is a (minimum) of 30% off of
published rates...

Was it originally shipped by a service like DHL and then picked up by the USPS when it came to the states? I recently had about 20kg of covers shipped to me and shipping was only 65 euros.

This was UPS, not USPS. USPS is definitely cheaper, although likely longer in transit.

When you had the 20kg of covers shipped, what service was it, i.e., how long did it take to get to you?

Personally, I think that 2-business day international delivery is overkill. I would have been perfectly fine with 1-2 weeks. I'm not complaining though.

The sender originally shipped via DHL Paket from Germany, but the USPS took over once it cam here. It took about a week to get to the U.S. and then another two weeks to get to me. Most of that time in the U.S. I believe it was sitting in customs.