Best Economical Way to Ship Souvenirs

We usually take an overnight bag, flattened out in our luggage, and fill it with our dirty laundry and carry it on the airplane with us as we travel home. We pack the souvenirs in clothing in our suitcase and check that bag through for the trip home. It has worked out well for us. These overnight bags are easy to find and can be filled up with soft clothing, etc so that they fit in an overhead bin on a plane.....and are not too heavy. We visited a FedEx office in downtown Paris once, hoping to use their services and it was ridiculously expensive. In Vienna we found a nice post office where an employee spoke English......he encouraged us to fill a pre-pay shipping box they sold with our souvenirs and ship it home a few days before we caught our plane home......that worked beautifully as well.

Athena, our method has just been to purchase mainly small, lightweight treasures that don't take up a lot of room or have to be shipped; it's not really difficult to do. My biggest problem is keeping the number of museum books - my favorite souvenir - to a minimum 'cause they tend to be pretty heavy.

Depending on how much you buy, the cost of flying an extra bag home may be less than shipping from abroad. Consider purchasing an inexpensive piece of luggage while in Europe and check it for your flight home, either packed with your souvenirs or clothing/items you'd previously packed in your carryon(s).

If we're talking about the relatively inexpensive little knick-knacks that we all seem to collect along the way then we do as Kathy and Jane suggest - bring along a small collapsible little bag to hold everything for the trip home. It doubles as a laundry bag during the trip.
For more substantial or higher priced items we usually rely on the store to arrange the shipping. On an anniversary trip to Italy last year, for example, we picked up some copper cookware at an artisan shop in Montepulciano. The owner was well practiced in the procedure for shipping purchases back to the US so we took care of everything on the spot. It wasn't particularly cheap, but it wasn't outrageous either, and we were happy to do it that way just for the security and convenience involved.

I'm not up on the current situation in Greece and Italy, but in some countries you don't pay V.A.T. on object above a certain cost if you have them shipped back to the US. Depending on size and weight, avoiding the V.A.T may save you enough to cover the shipping fees. It's important to deal only with respected retailers if you opt to go this way. You do occasionally hear about substitution of less expensive items, etc.

In general, if you must handle the shipping yourself, the post office will be less expensive than a commercial shipping company like UPS, DHL, etc. However, in that case you'll have to do your own packing, and if you need bubble wrap or styofoam packing materials, you may spend precious vacation time locating them. I would also do some research on reliability of the Italian postal service before using it to ship valuables. It may be perfectly fine now, but there was a time when it was extremely unreliable; things just didn't show up on the other end.

If all of this sounds like it will be costly or a hassle, or both, you are interpreting my comments correctly. I no longer purchase anything I cannot carry with me. I use the collapsible-bag technique already mentioned if I buy a piece of pottery or glass.

If it's large or extremely fragile, I'd for sure do as Robert suggested and have the shop ship it. It may not be cheap but it'll save the messing around to take care of it yourself - not the best use of what otherwise would be sightseeing time - and the shop owner will be responsible for getting it to you in one piece.

There is no inexpensive way to ship anything home from Europe. However, if it is an expensive item it will have significant VAT included in the price. So if you have the seller ship it, the VAT is removed, and -- generally, not always -- the VAT saving will cover the cost of shipping. For example -- one year the family purchased a couple hundred dollars of Christmas decorations that were shipped home. One year we bought a huge copper plate (about 4' in diameter) and the VAT was shipped.

If it is small nickel, dime souvenirs, then we follow Jane's recommendation and just carry an extra empty bag. If the items are pretty durable, then we will pack them in checked luggage. If more fragile will use the dirty clothing as padding and put them in a carry on bag. But we don't buy that many souvenirs.

As other people suggest the easiest way is to board on plane an extra bag (could be even a box) and pay the extra cost: usually is cheaper than ship with a carrier like FedEx, DHL, UPS...
In case you want to ship Poste Italiane, the Italian main mail service, has a deal with important international carriers, so you can go with the box in any post office and ship it. This is the shipping cost, depending by the weight of the box and the destination country: https://www.poste.it/files/1473803609422/poste-delivery-international-standard-listino.pdf . For example ship a box of 10Kg to USA costs 60€.
One point to keep in mind for shipping: there are sometimes limits and custom declaration to respect. These depends about what you are shipping and the quantity. Is important especially if you want to ship food and wine. And depends even by the destination country.

Another good point told by other user is to ask the help of the seller, especially for a big item or several small ones (the classical example in Italy: ship back 24 bottles of wines!). A lot of sellers now are used to international shipping, so they can help you a lot to safely pack the items and send them home. If they have a deal with a carrier maybe the cost is lower than the price list above.

Sorry to be a downer on this thread, but most souvenirs can be purchased on Amazon. We have bought wine in France and had it shipped at a good price. We find that packing light and not buying anything (except wine) makes the trip a lot easier.

Some great tips up thread. We tend to purchase small lightweight souvenirs that can be packed in our suitcase. That said, we made a special purchase like Robert mentioned. We purchased a treasured copper Grape Shaped Ice Bucket at Bottega del Rame in Montepulciano. Several couples from our tour were celebrating wedding anniversaries. We all had our purchases shipped from the store.

These are all great tips! Thank you all so much! We want to avoid buying an additional piece of luggage while we are there because we'll be lugging it around with us all throughout our trip. Bringing along an empty bag seems like a pretty good idea. Steveh3011, ha! You are probably right!

Thank you all again! Looking forward to being able to travel again next year; at least we hope so, right? At least we can spend a lot of time planning it! We have to make good use of our non-travel time.

Should you find that you do need to buy an extra piece of luggage for the trip home, I think in most major cities there are shops with cheap suitcases for sale around the central train station. In addition to cardboard boxes (mentioned above), I've stood at luggage carousels and seen coolers among the suitcases. If you buy something fragile and need a protective container but not a lot of interior space, a cooler might be cheaper than an additional suitcase.

We want to avoid buying an additional piece of luggage while we are
there because we'll be lugging it around with us all throughout our
trip.

Ah. I meant that you should buy it towards the end of your trip, when you're most likely to have the largest collection of purchases. But if you have room in your carryon for a folded-up bag, then go for it. Either way, you'll still be toting around a 3rd piece of baggage if you buy enough to have to start filling it early in the trip, right?

I muse sometimes about setting up an itinerary with a view to visiting the places with the best shopping opportunities at the end of the trip rather than the beginning, but there are higher priorities than shopping (like weather and simplicity of transportation), so that is not likely to happen. The nadir was the 2019 trip on which I encountered some lovely, inexpensive green-and-terracotta pottery in Ubeda, Spain, on Day 3 of 140. Needless to say, I bought nothing that day. Ceramics are heavy and, if low-fired, rather fragile.

Take it from someone that has traveled a lot, keep the souvenirs small and few.

Some places I do my souvenir shopping at the airport on way home. It uses up any strange currency you may not want again and the small mark up saves me the shopping and carrying hassle on during my travels. If my kids know I am coming through Amsterdsm, there is a standing order for cheese and this great caramel waffle cookies. As it is from duty free shop, it doesn't have to fit carry on numbers of items.
If Amazon is just to pedestrian, find a local shop that sells on line and buy and ship from there. This way you are still supporting a Greek business that needs support post Covid..
This is Cdn Amazon site, but these are small, lightweight and have a sleeve to fit over your suitcase handle. https://www.amazon.ca/Foldable-Waterproof-Packable-Capacity-Weekend/dp/B088LVM3H1/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=packable+travel+tote&qid=1602016723&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExNEY5WFVKVjhRTDFVJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUExMDM2ODk3MVRKRjlFSkJVRkdJMiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMzU5MTYyM1U2Vk8yTVFLUVFUTSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX3NlYXJjaF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

Thank you, Maria!