If you're one of those people whose mother comes to visit from the US twice a year, bringing with her all the packages you've had sent to her house from American online retailers - you can skip this post. This one's for all the rest of us with no 'private shipping service' as described above. As you probably well know, shipping items from the USA can be an expensive endeavor. Not only because the USPS's rates are fairly high to begin with, but also (as described in this post), I'm guessing because of the high demand for American goods, sellers take freedoms with extra shipping charges from their international customers they never would with their local ones. And those "free shipping on orders over $49"? For us international customers, they're as rare as hens' teeth (though not entirely nonexistent - check out my Facebook page). Then there are the retailers who just won't ship abroad, no matter what. The UK is closer and shipping costs are not that expensive, and there are also free shipping options where they don't jack up the price of the items to cover shipping, but there are still British retailers who won't sell to Israel.
That's how the various package forwarding services came to be.
