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What is an international courier?

An international courier specialises in moving goods to worldwide destinations, with a particular expertise in the extra documentation that’s needed when you are sending something beyond the boundaries of the EU. Whether it’s vital documents to South Africa or a present to your son on a gap year in Laos, international courier routes cover over 250 countries and territories. All the leglislation involved can seem insurmountable if you’re an infrequent user of international couriers, but using a site such as DeliveryQuoteCompare.com, will make the task much easier.

Finding suitable International services for your goods

By adding details of your internationally bound deliveries to DeliveryQuoteCompare.com, you’ll be put in contact with rated companies that specialise in global courier services. This means you don’t have to contact them all individually for a price, they will come to you with a quote and precise details of the service they offer for the particular goods you want to send.

This way there’s no need for you to know all the laws and legal requirements of international courier services (and believe us, there are quite a few!) as only companies who can fulfill your request will respond. They will also help you with the forms you may need to fill in to send goods internationally, such as a proforma invoice or tax documents, so there’s less for you to worry about.

Using international deliveries to grow your business

If you’re involved in buying and selling second hand goods on the internet, or own a small UK-based business, expanding your trading to include international customers is very enticing. Finding cheap couriers that can offer the service you want will open up international delivery opportunities and make having clients worldwide a viable option. If you simply want to send presents and goodies to friends and family in far-flung places with guaranteed collection and delivery times, international couriers are what you want too.

International courier costs versus level of service

Once you’ve received your free quotes from the international courier firms registered on our site, you can compare them in terms of cost and service. The more pricey quotes probably include extra services such as insurance, guaranteed collection and delivery times, as well as signature on arrival. If your consignment is time critical or precious to you regardless of the monetary value, these sorts of premium services might be worth you opting for.

On the other hand, the very cheapest international courier may not include these services, but if the cost is the most important factor for you this can work. One thing worth bearing in mind is that either way, the quotes you will get from DeliveryQuoteCompare.com will almost certainly be cheaper than going directly to the main international couriers as a one off customer with just one load to send.

Guidelines & restrictions when delivering internationally

We can’t express this enough. If you are paying for an international delivery by courier that includes insurance for your items, you must make sure you adhere to that company’s requirements for dispatching goods, or else you stand a chance of having your insurance not pay out in the event of a claim. It’s all pretty much common sense stuff. For example, if the goods you want to send are on their high-risk list, there’s no point in paying extra for insurance, as it won’t pay out anyway.

Each courier will also hold a database of things they will refuse to carry internationally, but if you use our site to tell them exactly what you want delivering and the courier quotes for you, that means they are prepared to take it again saving you the time and effort of trawling through all the ins and outs of terms and conditions for each international courier.

Similarly, try and be as accurate as possible when describing your consignment. If you guess the measurements and they are wrong, you won’t get an accurate quote and may end up paying more. Most international couriers will submit a quote on the basis of volumetric weight against actual weight.

Again, our customer rated international courier firms will assist you with the calculations, so don’t worry, but if you’re mathematically inclined, volumetric weight in kilos is length in cm x height in cm x width in cm divided by 5000. This will then be compared to the actual weight of the package and whichever is greatest will be used as a basis for the cost.

Preparing your items for international courier dispatch

After carefully selecting the level of service you want, preparing your items ready for being couriered half way around the world is an important factor. Our advice is to use strong, rigid cartons, double-lined if possible and to select the correct size – too big and it can collapse, too small and it can burst.

Inside the box, make sure you wrap items separately and place them away from the edges of the carton and not touching each other. Fill any empty space around them with newspaper, polystyrene chips or bubble wrap to avoid movement during transit. And remember, marking ‘Fragile’ on the box is not a substitute for goods being poorly packaged up for their international journey!

Another handy hint is to make sure you’ve tightened any transportation screws on electrical gadgets if they have them. Once your items are all packaged up, seal with high quality tape and make sure any old bar codes are removed (you don’t want it going to Washington DC when it was destined for Kuala Lumpur) and you’re ready for your international courier to come and pick it up.

International Couriers Related Links

• Courier services
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• Same day courier
• Large item courier