What's better for sending big boxes home from Korea, EMS or sea shipping?
I'm heading back to my home country soon and want to ship clothes, books, and kitchen items ahead of me. I heard the post office EMS is fast but expensive, and that sea freight is an option too, but I don't know how to arrange it. I'd like to know the cheapest way to send bulky or heavy boxes and anything to watch out for at customs.
1 Answer
If speed matters, post-office EMS is convenient, but for heavy or bulky boxes it gets expensive; for non-urgent things like clothes, books, and kitchenware, sea-mail parcels are far cheaper. At the post office you can send a surface (sea) parcel, which takes one to two months but costs roughly a third of airmail, and if you have a lot, private international movers or forwarding companies often beat the post office per box. When you ship, declare items and values honestly on the invoice and mark them as used personal effects rather than new goods, since new or high-value items can trigger import duty in the destination country.