£33 to send a book to Sweden! Help!

[feleyah]

I have a Swedish friend and it's her birthday. She is so kind and sweet and I would like to send her a gift to arrive next week. I went to the post office with a £10 book I had got her and it was £33 to send to Sweden.

My max budget for her gift including postage is £20/25.

I am returning the book, but how can I get her a gift and avoid postage from the UK?

Is there a Swedish Etsy I can buy from?

You just need to do your research on what e-commerce sites operate in Sweden. Amazon, Swedish department stores etc.

That sounds crazy, I post to USA tracked and signed for 11.50. Did they try to upgrade you to next day or something? If you search on Etsy you could set it to show you Swedish shops only, when you check out tell the buyer its a gift and to send it straight to your friend and don't include an invoice, they will send you a copy via email.

Tell the seller , not buyer!

Is the book available on book depository.com ? They do free, worldwide, shipping (not sure about gift wrapping tho)

Amazon - put the recipients address in your address book and then pick an item you want to send.
When you check out you add their address as the delivery address it will let you know if it's possible to send it. Sometimes you have to pay a bit extra to post on top of the free prime but it very much depends on the item.
I use this method to send gifts toUSA loads, it's saves a fortune in postage but it can take some time to find an item that's available for delivery in that country

Have you costed as a parcel via courier companies not just Royal Mail?

I was quoted £60 to deliver a book from Amazon to France a few months ago.

Looked at a few sellers.... all similar. Brexit I guess.

In the end I sent her a link to the book and paypaled her the money to order it from French Amazon.

Good idea!

Try ParcelMonkey for a quote.

thank you everyone :)

Try looking at the price on the Royal Mail website to see if it's less than £33. If so, buy the postage in advance on that site and take the parcel to a collection point to print the label.

There have been a couple of times in the past few years when I've looked up international delivery prices on Royal Mail and then rocked up at the Post Office expecting it to be the same price. But the Post Office charged me more and I was too much of a wuss to question it. So I no longer trust the Post Office to offer the cheapest option as standard.

It's loads cheaper on the Royal Mail website and they'll collect from you.