Sending a gift overseas can be surprisingly challenging. While most of us are fine giving a gift to someone in person, sending something abroad to a friend or family member can be really challenging due to all of the logistical things to keep in mind. If you really want to send a gift that will be remembered to someone overseas, then it helps to keep these simple tips in mind before you send it off.


If Possible, Try And Prepay Customs Duties And Taxes

There are some rules around sending gifts overseas. For example, some countries may require the recipient to pay customs and duties, but others might let you mark the package as a gift so that it skips any customs charges assuming it’s below a certain value. In some cases, you might be able to prepay the customs duties and taxes so that it goes straight to your recipient. In the event that they do need to pay, you may want to send them a little money ahead of time or even offer to pay the customs and handling fee for them.

Don’t Stress Too Much About Your Gift Arriving On Time

International deliveries are always going to be finicky. They might arrive early, they might arrive late, and sometimes they’ll arrive just on time. It’s difficult to judge the exact time they’ll reach your recipient, so it’s best not to get too stressed out over the gift arriving on a specific day. Whether it’s their birthday, for a holiday, or to coincide with an event, you should always aim to send it earlier rather than later.

You Can Send More Things Abroad Than You’d Think

Some people don’t like the idea of sending gifts abroad because it’s a lot of work to package things correctly and print out shipping labels. As such, you may want to consider buying something from a store and having it gift wrapped and sent to your recipient. You can use Amazon to send international deliveries, many online stores also ship overseas, and you can even send flowers to another country. There are more stores than you think that will send items abroad, so don’t hesitate to try this out if you’re looking for an easier way to send a gift to a friend or family member in another country.

Make Sure It’s Packaged Properly With Plenty Of Padding

But if you do go the route of packaging the gift yourself, it’s important to make sure there is plenty of padding to protect the items inside. Even if the item itself isn’t fragile, it’s always best to add plenty of padding so that it survives any rough handling during the transportation process. For instance, you may want to consider placing your gift into a box with protective materials, then placing it into another box that is slightly larger and also contains more padding. This is the best approach for fragile items and doesn’t increase the cost much while offering more peace of mind.