Can someone explain (international) mail to me?

This is kind of a stupid question to ask,but I am only 18 and never used real mail,so what I want to know is if for example I want to send something to someone in another country,do I have to pay for the package or can the other person pay? It is a computer part to be more precise and I want someone else to send it to my country,but I want to pay for the shipment and that person to not pay anything if possible,so can someone please help me? Thanks in advance,I already asked a few friends,but they’re also 18 and thus never used mail,so I didn’t get an answer.

Never used real mail? Damn.

The sender always pays. I’ve only mailed letters internationally, but I always go to the post office and ask the clerk how much to pay to send a letter to that specific location and then I pay and they send it, that’s it.

If you’re sending internationally, there will be a customs form to fill out. On this you’ll list the item(s) in the package and declare a value. The other party may or may not have to pay duty on it. I imagine someone will be along soon to talk about this, and I’ll demure since I haven’t sent an international package for a number of years.

I think you can send domestic packages COD (Collect on Delivery), but I don’t think you can do that with international packages. Of course that’s sending from the US to somewhere.

The person sending to you would need to check his own country’s requirements.

Is there any way you could send him the money for everything in advance? Do they have a Paypal account or something like that?

Do you have a “shipping center” in your area, perhaps a PostNet? One way you can pay for shipping to yourself is to have the sender charge shipping to your account. But you don’t have a DHL or UPS or FedEx account. Your local PostNet does. They might be able to let the sender ship on their account and then charge you the cost (plus a fee).

Any time I’ve ever had complicated shipping to do, I go to PostNet. They figure it out for me.

I’ve never heard of the Post Office allowing you to charge an international shipment to the recipient.

You could use FedEx, open an account yourself and have the sender charge to your account. I imagine UPS, DHL, etc will allow you to do the same. But these will be more expensive than the postal service.