The OA board’s Executive Committee has approved a new method for calculating bookstore shipping prices to countries outside the US. As a result, members will save about 60 percent on shipping when they purchase a smaller order, while larger orders may cost a little more to ship.
This new method is a significant shift, moving away from calculating the shipping cost based on the order’s total price to calculating based on weight and destination. For the first time ever, the OA bookstore will be directly linked to our worldwide shipper’s pricing database, so going forward, the price a member pays for international shipping on an individual order will match as closely as possible the price the World Service Office has to pay to ship that particular order.
To take advantage of 60 percent savings on shipping for smaller orders, the order’s total weight must be less than 4.25 pounds (about 1,925 grams—see image above for a sample order of this size). At the time of this story’s publication, it is not known whether we will be able to display the order’s total weight in the checkout process, so we are asking members to add and remove items from their cart to find the threshold and trigger the small-order price. In the bookstore, when you get to the Payment screen in checkout, if you see “International Shipping” as the shipping method, remove items until you see “International Shipping (small order)” along with the significantly reduced price. Members can also experiment with dividing a larger order into two smaller orders to save about 20 percent total on shipping.
Our new international shipping rates are not available for islands, territories, and overseas post offices (APO/FPO) that are designated as domestic addresses by the United States Postal Service.
The World Service Office will implement similar weight-based shipping calculations for US orders by January 2026, and US members will also save on shipping costs. Stay tuned for a future announcement!