I’m leaving Taiwan very soon, and I need to find a company who can surface mail a lot of boxes of books, clothes and misc. items collected over 5 years.
Speed does not matter. I’m happy to wait 3, 4 or even 5 months for them to arrive in my home country. Affordability and convince are the main things I’m looking for.
Also, how much would it cost roughly (very roughly!) for 3 to 4 boxes each weighing 20kg?
Thanks so much guys!
The regular post office does this. They even have boxes you can buy.
I think the limit us 5kg per box. At least it was to Malaysia. Around NT300 per box
Go on the post office website. It has all the info.
Depends on your home country. I don;t think the Post Office ships surface to the US anymore, ever since the US ended the M-bag service (thanks, GW Bush…).
I’ll enquire at my local post office today and let you guy know what they say. It’s to AU btw.
BTW does the post office offer tracking for these big boxes? I’m happy to wait, but I don’t want it to go missing!!
Ok the post office told me the max per box I can send is 15kg (5kg seemed a bit small!). They sold me the boxes for 45nt each which were 393243cm and they gave me the customs declaration and commercial invoice papers to stick on when I’m done.
Post office is what we usually did to Central America. The other option -actuially not that expensive- is to rent half or a whole container.
I’ve already sent one 393243cm box away to Australia already which weighed in at 14.3kg.
It cost 800nt, but I may end up paying a little more when I collect it back in Australia.
They encourage you to fill it out in English, even if you can write Chinese since the box will be moving internationally.
Oh yeah and I forgot to add. Be prepared for them to quiz you about the exact contents of the box, and whether or not there are any batteries etc. You’ll need to be able to answer those questions in Chinese.
And for some countries you must insure the contents of the box. Due to those governments’ regulations you can’t not insure the contents.
Lucky that you could send such a big box. When I shipped my books to Malaysia I could only ship 5kg at a time. There were a lot of boxes at the PO that day. 
Wow, that’s a great price! considering it probably would have cost 3-5 times that price if you were to ship from Aus to Taiwan instead!
Can I ask - how long did they expect for the box to arrive in Aus?
Thanks!
Sorry, they didn’t say, and I forgot to ask.
When the first box arrives, I’ll post back here with how long it took.
To Malaysia it took about 6 weeks.
The first 2/6 boxes just arrived! That’s only 4 weeks from Taipei to Melbourne (AU)!
Largest box available, 15kg, and only cost 800nt per box. Winning!
Thanks for the update @andyj - great to know 
I now have 5/6 boxes. The delivery time has been fairly consistent at around 4-5 weeks for each box, regardless of size.
Last box. 6/6. I’ve been back in AU 5 weeks to the day. Not bad! A capacitor broke off a graphics card but apart from that even lego things made it back alive.
I/m wondering about maybe shipping my tools back to the UK, cos there would be no interest in them second hand here. I probably wont again have a car or motorbike in the UK but I do currently have a boat, with an engine.
Tools of course arent very fragile or bulky, and are nonperishable, so they could stay in transit for months, but they are quite heavy. In the “old days” people filled plywood tea chests for surface shipping overseas. I knew some Australians that did it from the UK
However, there are other old threads on here that say that surface mail (and shipping?) of private goods from Taiwan to the UK is no more. I’d think airmail/freight wont make sense for tools.
Does anyone know what the current best option is?
I think they still do surface mail to Germany, so if you have someone in mainland eu to receive it this could be one way, otherwise look at freight forwarders, you know the kind for shipping taobao or whatever purchases. They do surface mail. I’ll have to get back to you on which companies do this.
This company seem to do door to door services for 80 pounds per package. The page appears to be translated.
https://www.sps-tw.com.tw/england-express.html
I recommend wood crates if you are going to sea ship tools and such. It’s to prevent stuff from coming apart and parts scattering everywhere.
Thanks. Quite pricy but maybe its worth it.
I see 150 cms in there, Longest dimension? Side of cube? If its 150X110X25 thats not a very big package, though I’d guess it would take most of my tools, packed carefully.
Also 30 quid, but if that isn’t the cost it must be some supplementary charge, maybe insurance?
No mention of weight. Perhaps they dont care, in which case I might use ferroconcrete for packaging, which should be pretty secure.
I think it said weight limit is 25kg.
I think there has to be an English site in there somewhere, the site looks to be UK based.