How much does it cost to send a package to Italy?

The cost to send a package to Italy is determined by many factors. But even a small, light gift parcel could cost you several hundred dollars if you choose next-day delivery. Thankfully, there are some simple ways to substantially reduce shipping fees - extend the delivery time, use a broker, and reduce the parcel size. This blog outlines and explains those points.

Table of Contents

• How Delivery Times Affect Shipping Rates
• What is a Shipping Broker?
• The Role of Parcel Size When Shipping
• Conclusion

How Delivery Times Affect Shipping Rates

A major cost determinant when shipping is a parcel’s delivery time: the sooner it needs to arrive, the more it will cost you.

For a one-business day service to Italy, a one kilogram package could cost about $400 CAD to deliver; however, extending the time to eight-business days, drops the price to around $50 CAD.

Between those two extremes, adding a day or two from the quickest service will knock the price down to about $250 CAD.

What is a Shipping Broker?

A shipping broker has connections with a range of carriers and can access lower costs for its clients compared to someone walking into a carrier’s retail outlet.

Secureship is a Canadian shipping broker whose bulk agreements with reputable firms like Canada Post, UPS, and FedEx knocks shipping rates by at least half.

And while those savings are impressive, Secureship’s online estimator is an easy-to-use online tool that produces results in mere minutes.

So, having Secureship working for you also saves you heaps of time, which frees you for more important, money making tasks.

The Role of Parcel Size When Shipping

Obviously, a two-kilogram item costs more to ship than a one-kilogram item. But if the one-kilogram item is placed in a larger box, the shipping rate increases!

And that’s because carriers measure the container’s size and calculate dimensional weight, as the diagram below shows.

The dimensional weight is compared to the actual weight and whichever is bigger, that’s used to determine the shipping rate.

The bottom line: A package of popping corn would ship for less than the equivalent weight of popped corn.

Conclusion

Shipping a package to Italy, or anywhere, from Canada can be quite pricey. However, there are some strategies to make shipping more affordable. Slow down the delivery time; even a day or so could save you a third of the cost. Find a broker, like Canadian-based Secureship, whose connections to UPS, Canada Post, and FedEx cuts their retail prices in half. And finally, pack the goods in the smallest box possible as carriers use size to calculate the shipping rate.