France Fodorites- Who to use to ship to U.S.
 

If I need to ship some boxes of personal effects, who can ship these back at a reasonable cost. Even with 40% discount, FedEx is too high. Does France have International Parcel Post like the USPS, and is this the service they call Colisimo?

UPS (United Parcel Service) has operations in France, but I have no idea of the costs.

"Does France have International Parcel Post like the USPS, and is this the service they call Colisimo?"

The service is called "Colissimo international". The Post Office sells special dark red boxes which come in various sizes and are pre-stamped.

Is the Colissimo international similar to the U.S. Post Office flat rate box?

Is the Colissimo international similar to the U.S. Post Office flat rate box?

I am sorry, I live in France and have no idea how the two compare.
Here is some info (in French) on Colissimo International :

http://www.coliposte.fr/gp/services/main.jsp?m=30015020

Postal solutions only go up to a certain number of kilos.

Beyond that, you need an official shipper. The Yellow Pages of any country are full of them.

"Postal solutions only go up to a certain number of kilos"

30 kg for Colissimo International.

We ship packages through the French Postal System without any problems. They provide the boxes. There is a limit to the size of the boxes, but the larger boxes do hold quite a bit.

It's far less expensive using the French postal system then mailing the same packages from Spain to the USA.

I should have specified : 30 kg for packages from France to the US.
The number of kilos varies from country to country.

Pvoyageuse, Thank you very much, I will head there tommorrow to see what the largest box they have is.

Last summer we shipped a few boxes home from France to the US. We got the XL box, the reddish one mentioned here already. It was 12"x8"x18" and it cost 38 euro. They told me that weight didn't matter, just put as much stuff in it as we wanted. The boxes all arrived in about 7 days to the PNW. We did learn one way to make it easier. Go purchase the box and get the form, then take it to your hotel/apt/whatever and fill it. The box has self adhesive strips so you don't need tape or anything. Then take it back to La Poste with the form and it is easier than packing the box onsite.

good information. wish I had it last year when I was dragging around 3 suitcases of overweight (:

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