Hi,

I was wondering what is the best way to send small parcels from Melbourne to France ?

By "best" I mean the option which is the most reliable, tracking number and insurance possibly, and pretty cheap at the same time.

I had a pretty bad experience with Australian Post sending a USB stick to a friend in Paris. Although I went for the most secured shipment (tracking number + insurance), my friend never had the parcel ! Australian Post told me they lost track of the parcel when it landed in France. And french post never told me anything about it. Then Aussie post told me my parcel was probably stuck somewhere at the french customs. I contacted them but never had any answer. That's pretty weird. My guess is since state of emergency has been declared after Paris attacks in November 2015, french customs simply blocked or even destroyed my parcel. And Aussi Post didn't want to give my money back of the total insured amount . The USB stick contained a valuable 3D graphic design software (around 900AUD worth). Aussie Post only gave me a refund of 28AUD, even though I showed them a proof of purchase of the software, they said "we can only reimburse you the value of the USB stick + postage costs" ... :(

This is why I'm looking for another solution to send parcels in France. This will mainly be sending small gifts: perfume, bath towells .... to my family for christmas, that kind of small, not heavy things. I stumbled upon a lot of different options on the internet but I don't know which ones are reliable or not and prices vary a lot too so, all your thoughts on this are welcome.

Thank you !