Are you planning on sending an item to someone that lives abroad? The steps are pretty simple unless you make grievous mistakes that would cause your parcel to either not reach the desired destination. In this informative piece, we are taking you through some of the mistakes you should avoid when sending a package abroad.

1. Sending To the Wrong Address

This looks impossible, but thousands of parcels have either been stuck midway or returned back to the original sender for mistakes in the address.

When sending a package abroad, you must know that the address slating system in such country may be different from the regular address system you are used to here in your country.

The destination country may have different ways of writing house codes, street codes, zip codes, area codes, provinces, and state codes.

When you do not spot this mistake, your address will be crested on Wooden Crates during the Packing and Shipping process. The shipping company will now have to either return your items or contact you for the right address for extra fees.

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2. Shipping Prohibited Items

Another great mistake that could cause you to lose your items and even put your receiver under tight scrutiny is when you ship items that are prohibited by a country into the country.

After the packing and shipping process, every state has a strict clearance, quality control, and other certifications before they get into the country.

You may not be allowed to bring in items like alcohol, firearms, antiques, electronic gadgets, and other sensitive items into a country unless it passes through stringent custom clearance.

Thus, before you go through the stress of packaging your item in a wooden crate and going through rigorous packing and shipping process, make sure the items you are sending is not prohibited by the destination country.

You can either get this information off the internet or meet your shipping company for appropriate advice.

Also, you must obtain a document called the custom declaration form that shows the content and value of the items in your wooden crate. Your shipping company should further advise you on how to obtain, correctly fill, and submit the document to the customs department.

3. Using the Wrong Packaging Materials

What’s the point of sending an item over a long distance only for the receiver to get a badly damaged parcel? The wrong packaging material spells doom for you because it would definitely have issues when putting through the rigorous packing and shipping process that is sometimes automated.

Before you send out any parcel, make arrangements for quality packaging materials. Delicate and breakable items will require extra padding to make sure they don’t get broken in the shipping process.

After carefully packing these items, make them as fragile, so your Shipping Company will handle them correctly.

Bottom Line

The following steps will help you avoid the most common shipping mistakes when you send a parcel abroad. Always double-check every step before you ship your packages overseas.