Every line the estimator offers, with what it costs and what it promises

Chargeable weight is the greater of actual weight and the box measurement, but the divisor and the rounding step belong to the line rather than to the destination, and the estimator prints both in View Details. Of the 54 lines we pulled, 39 divide by 8000; six US lines divide by 5000 and nine lines across the three destinations by 6000, which makes a bulky parcel heavier on paper. Rounding runs from one gram to a full kilogram: the cheapest US line rounds up to the next fifty grams, seven other US lines round to the next 500. Some freight lines also carry minimum billing weights of 1.5, 22 or 27 kilograms, and a light parcel on one of them is billed at the minimum. Any side at or over ninety centimetres triggers separate packaging.

Then the two payments. What you pay at submission is the estimate. After packing, the actual is charged in My Shipments; pay the difference or receive it back. Rehearsal packing for twenty yuan removes the surprise by weighing the real parcel first.

Start with the word in the Tariff column, which is doing more work than it looks. Tax free does not mean no tax is due on the parcel; it means the line quotes no duty of its own, and the payload carries a tariff amount of zero against it. DDP means the line settles duty on your behalf and bills it back: the two US lines marked that way add CN¥50, which shows up as the clearance line and nowhere on the fee page. Duties Payable by Recipient is the plain label for leaving the bill at your door, and four lines across the three destinations carry it, one of them Germany's surface line.

European VAT sits outside all three. The UK and the EU abolished their low-value exemptions, so VAT is due from the first unit of value. Under 150 euros or 135 pounds the operator says its system collects that VAT when the order is placed or the parcel submitted, which is a charge separate from every shipping figure in the tables above; over that threshold customs may add duty on top, and the parcel is likelier to be opened. The operator publishes neither the rate it collects nor the base it applies it to, so for Germany plan on roughly a fifth of the declared value on top of the figures above and check the order screen for the exact line. You declare, itemised or as one total the system spreads, and the operator's own examples of an unreasonable declaration are three pairs of shoes at one dollar, a ten-kilogram ring, and a thousand dollars against two hundred of goods. Customs risk, returns and destruction costs fall on the recipient.

Refused for shipment: tobacco, alcohol, blades of every kind down to letter openers, magnets, gas lighters, liquids over 150 millilitres, medicines, batteries on most lines, and counterfeit or infringing goods, which the warehouse may destroy. Small cosmetics, under 100 millilitres each and 200 in total, are attempted.