Shipping boxes emergency

[Expat Lit Tchr]

Dear all,

I am moving from Hong Kong to a city in mainland China, and have 15 fairly heavy boxes of books/papers (probably each box weighs roughly 20 kg). SF Express wouldn't take them, and I need them to be picked up at my work/office location. Do you know of other options? I am going to try calling DHL (though I've heard it's very expensive) and SeaRates. I've found online forms, requesting a quotation, to be very cumbersome and feel it's better to call. If there's any advice about this I'd be grateful. Note: the boxes don't have to be express delivery but I can't wait months for them, either; a shipping time of 2-4 weeks would be ideal. Thank you!

[shri]

"Books/Papers" are going to be problematic as they need to be inspected by customs and quite often a "special fee" needs to be paid by the clearing agent. SF and most legit couriers will stay away from books.

We've had packages rejected because we used old newspapers as stuffing to prevent the product from moving around in the box.

[Expat Lit Tchr]

Thanks for this--yes, I was puzzled by the response from the SF Express person. He had come to my office area for a different pickup/delivery, and when I showed him the boxes and let him look inside, he was really skeptical and walked out. Originally, I sent the boxes from Nanjing to Hong Kong through the regular post office. They've grown in number since then, and for various reasons, an office pickup of the shipment would be better.

[chuckster007]

15 boxes of books
What city in China??

[ycchai]

Try HK post, seems like they are the cheapest

check with these shipper also
日逸通 – your courier partner
http://www.kke.com.hk/

Books are a no no. Even sending audit files to China are a pain