Shipping a package from China to my Dad

[chefatwork]

Hi Guys

I want to send a tablet to my Dad. I am living in China and want to know how to do it so he pays as little as possible. What would be the best to use EMS or a courier? I read somewhere, something about an invoice? This is my old tablet that I want to send to him so I do not have an invoice for it. Should the invoice be attached to the parcell? How to send it so that he can collect it from the Post office and pay any duties there that is payable instead of trying to deal with OR Tambo?

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Paratex]

I know this is a bit old but, i think you are going to battle and its frankly risky to send it from China, China post and HonKong post have tightened up on any item that has batteries. Many firms will cheat a bit and write on the package some other trash but there is nothing stopping them from just tossing it away because you broke the rules. This month some agents have stopped accepting parcels for hong Kong mail and there is a huge backlog because they are cracking down on suppliers sending batteries in the mail or items with batteries inside them.

DHL does have an offering for items with batteries transported as dangerous cargo but beware as the fees will be very high.

 

[itareanlnotani]

China has rules about batteries over a certain watt hour limit, as do other shippers. Tablets should be fine though.

China Post is awful though. Tracking is terrible. EMS is better, but more expensive. DHL is fairly decent, although the local agents here are crappy compared to other countries. That said, I would send it DHL, you can ship < 1kg on DHL for roughly 250RMB (get a friend to assist you finding a shipping agent on Taobao), and a good proportion of the the time you won't have to pay duties on the receiving end, especially if its less than your dad's yearly gift allowance (R1000).

I'd recommend the Allwinner based Android tablets - they're good bang for buck. Wholesale, they're well under R300 for decent dual core / 1G ram / capacitative touch model. (Assuming R1 = RMB1.6)

Alternate routes - ask on Facebook (via VPN!) if anyone is heading home; Lots of people help each other out bringing stuff back.