Send My Love: 9 Practical Tips for Sending Gifts Overseas

While it is the thought that counts, KaBlogs (Blogs ng mga Kababayang OFW and Expats) members share some tips with SP to help make sending tokens to your loved ones that much easier.

1.    Chocolates? Forget it.
Save yourself some heartache by steering clear of sending chocolates using commercial delivery services.
Using a Filipino-owned delivery company serving France, Amy’s chocolates took three months to make the trip from her house to her family’s doorstep. Based in Nice, France since 2000, Amy Enson Menta says the chocolates she sent back to the Philippines arrived melted and in poor condition.
Raymund Landa also had a similar experience using a Filipino express delivery service branch in Saudi Arabia. “I sent a laptop and some chocolates. It took 7 days to get to Calamba, Laguna. The laptop was fine, but the chocolates with the package all melted.”

2.    Flowers? Maybe.
Though chocolates maybe a hard gift to send, flowers maybe more of a possibility, but be willing to pay the price. Amy used Interflora to send a dozen white roses to the Philippines at Php 6,000. “With Interflora, the flowers were fresh, but sending them was pricey. But I didn’t mind. It was worth it.”

3.    Worth the wait
Most delivery services lower the cost of packages by waiting to send items in bulk. Make sure your gift can wait that long and ideally has a while to go before expiring. “If we need urgent packages to send, it [a Filipino-owned delivery company here in France] isn’t available. They usually collect more boxes for shipping before sending them all in one go,” said Amy.

Click here to read more practical tips on sending gifts overseas.