Hi there.  Could you please present me with three options to ship lots
of books and a bike from Michelstadt, Germany to Boston,
Massachusetts.  Alternatively, you can ship from Frankfurt, Germany,
which is the nearest big city to Michelstadt.

The U.S. Postal Service or Deutsche Post shouldn't be considered, as
they are too expensive.    I want to ship about 1000 books and a bike.
 Someone can box them up in Germany and take them to a location to
ship them, so that boxing doesn't have to be included in the price. 
It doesn't have to be fast.  6-8 weeks are ideal, a little longer
works, too.

What are my options?  Please include three options with prices,
company names, how the process works, and how to contact the company. 
It can be an American company or one from another country.  Doesn't
matter.  Ask for clarification if needed.  The more detailed the
better.

Hello elizabeth199!

There are several possible ways to ship lots of things
transcontinentally. The most economical is probably sea shipment.
There is a sea shipment company ( www.ambaggage.com ) that will carry
your items from Frankfurt to  for $430 for less than one cubic meter,
$390 (per cubic meter) for one cubic meter to 3.9 cubic meters, and
$350 (per cubic meter) for 4 cubic meters+. A cubic meter is a very
large amount of stuff - and there are no weight restrictions on what
you put in these cubic meters. These services work by having you box
up your belongings (you would need to get one bike box - they're
cheap), and put them into an area of a cubic meter. You then pay based
on how many cubic meters you're shipping. This company would pick up
your package from their depot in Frankfurt, and drop it off in Boston.
This company insures your packages for $500 per box. (Not per m^3)

There are many small-parcel services that will charge you about $4 per
kilogram plus a fee for each box you ship. Since books are heavy, I
haven't investigated those further. If you'd like me to do so, please
file a clarification request.

UPS/FedEx are also not very feasible, as they don't have international
ground services. These services tend to charge by the pound and only
offer (expensive!) air shipments. Just for giggles, assuming each book
of yours weighed about 1 pound, and that your bike weighed about 30
pounds (and was oversized), UPS would charge you $1,201.74 for their
slowest method, without the bike being shipped. (I could only estimate
5 70kg boxes on their website).

I hope this information helped you answer your question. If you have
further questions, please let me know.

Thank you!

/gleffler-ga

Search strategy:
www.google.com/search?q=international+sea+shipment
www.google.com/search?q=international+hundredweight+shipment
www.google.com/search?q=small+sea+shipments+international

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Request for Answer Clarification by elizabeth199-ga on 23 Jul 2003 06:11 PDT

Hi.  Thanks for your answer.  Your info on ambaggage is good, however,
I requested <<Please include THREE options with prices, company names,
how the process works, and how to contact the company.>>  But you only
provided this for www.ambaggage.com.  Please either provide details
for two additional companies (exclusing postal services as per my note
"The U.S. Postal Service or Deutsche Post shouldn't be considered, as
they are too expensive.") or remove your answer. Also, please note
that since the US Postal Service and Deutsche Post are too expensive,
obviously, companies that are more expensive than those options are
excluded as well.  Thank you.