Hi all, in the end it all depends on the regional authorities - during the first SA group order to the EU we were accused of being a commercial importer who would have had some extra hurdles to jump over, which we could only avoid with an extra dose of silver tongue artistry. We then tried for the second import to utilize another carrier for direct airfreight, just to learn that they all are too afraid of paperwork to handle live plant inspections, so there might be trial and error involved. In my experience with my own earlier SA Bulb Company orders, the smaller packages go through customs processes far more easy. The whole process is draining, but of course the joy of finally holding your bulbs in hand compensates for a lot. Depending on your local postal system you may have to "price in" the extra stress for the plants during the local transport - Here in Europe for some countries this can mean another 2-3 weeks on the road. Our main losses were Agapanthus (which doesn't take well to the radical root removal necessary for transport) and smaller sizes of Zantedeschia. Like Robert I'm happy to share experiences with anyone willing to tackle this quest for other territories. Maybe there are more candidates than Canada? all the best, Martin Am 25.12.25 um 23:49 schrieb Robert Lauf via pbs: > > All, > Uli's suggestion is a good one, and I'm happy to share some experience on that subject. Before we did the huge group orders, I ordered individually from SA Bulb and in one case I went in with a fellow member on a joint order. It definitely helped ease the pain of shipping costs and given the low catalog prices, we were both happy with the final result. > Bear in mind that the shipping for a box a bit larger than a shoebox from South Africa to Tennessee was about $130 as I recall. If you order enough to fill it, there might be $250 worth of bulbs, which would easily be 2-3 times that value on the US market if you could even find them. So under those terms, the shipping is about 50% of the bulb cost and is reasonable. The trick is thus to have an order that really fills a smaller box rather than shipping a big box that's half empty. The vendor can work with you to optimize that issue, but this is the overall economics in a nutshell. The US and EU group orders benefit from having several members who already have permits and know how to deal with the inspection process, so it would be ideal if one of the Canadian members knows how their processes work or is willing to learn ahead of time! > Bob Merry Christmas from Tennessee - cloudy and 68 degrees > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > https://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > PBS Forum https://… -- Martin (pronoun: he) ---------------------------------------------- Southern Germany Likely zone 7a _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net https://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…