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Comment by kuschku | Hacker News Reader

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kuschku·

Actually, delivery costs in Europe are basically nil.

You can ship a package in 3 days all across the EU for under 4€ with DHL. I know, because I’ve done so several times.

Stuff that’s small enough to fit in a letter even for 80ct across the entire EU in 2 days.

In fact, the domestic shipping market in the EU is actually cheaper than getting international parcels.

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I got curious, and indeed looks like a package in Germany is domestically 4€ and within EU 8.89€. However, when sending a small package from Finland it's 22€ domestic and 40€ to Germany with DHL.

So a disclaimer to my original claim: applies only to a subset of European countries.

Companies that ship a lot of stuff get much lower prices from DHL, UPS etc.

Yes, I habe worked at a company where we would ship a high amount of construction machine spare parts with FedEx, DHL et al. We had a ~90% discount on their regular prices.

Actually, that’s what you get via the website. In-Store, they’ll be able to offer you a reduced rate costing half of what they offer online. I had assumed the same, and was expecting to pay ~9€, but the employee in the DHL store recommended me the cheaper solution.

And so I shipped a bunch of HDDs from Germany to the Netherlands in 3 days for 3.40€

And if you’re a company, you get a ~90% discount even. The cost isn’t in shipping, but in the employees in the store picking up your package. Pre-Sorted packages delivered directly to a hub are really cheap.

why did I pay 18EUR to ship something from Berlin to Budapest? (1.3Kg)

so no, it's not Nil.

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