This is similar to this thread I started a long time ago. Just the opposite direction…
My girlfriend and I will be leaving Paris in a couple of months and we both have a ton of books. She’s going to part with some of hers, but I can’t. I’m going to send some of mine to Taiwan directly, since I’ll be going there after a little while.
I’m wondering what the cheapest way to send books from Europe to US/Asia would be. We don’t really care about whether or not they get a little beat up (assuming they’re still readable) or how long it takes (assuming it takes less than about six months.
I haven’t sent anything to Asia but I’ve done some heavy sending between Europe and the Americas.
French Postal service may be the cheapest, but I don’t know if they will give you estimates beforehand. If it is a really big volume, try a general “goods shipping” (TIR) place. I usually buy plastic boxes at the supermarket: they don’t always survive the trip (it doesn’t matter how many times you write “fragile” on the boxes, guys will climb them anyway) but the stuff inside does.
UPS, MRW et al may be cheaper than you think. Shop around a bit, I simply don’t have any better access to their French prices than you do.