Originally Posted by MTS
... sending a package overseas from the US these days is one huge royal PITA.
The customs forms have to be filled out (and the online version is worse than the written one). And I have to stand in line at the PO - I can't just drop in the priority kiosk in the PO like I can with a stamped domestic package.
If you do a lot of international shipping via USPS, you *can* make it a little easier, MTS. But you'll have to talk to your Postmaster. The issue is one of becoming a "known shipper" in the eyes of USPS. I believe it's a security issue. They want to know from where all the international packages are originating.
In our case, we had a long talk with our Postmaster, and now our international packages go out with all our domestic mail. We used to schedule daily "carrier pickups" but I guess after several years of this our mail carriers have just made us an automatic part of the route.
The only thing that we insist is done differently (for our benefit and our customers) is that the carrier has to individually scan each international package, so that there is a record showing that it has left our hands and is now in the hands of USPS. That way our customers can see that not only have we made a label for their shipment, but that the package has actually been mailed. (For our domestic packages there's a handy little thing called a "scan form" which automatically accomplishes the same thing.)