Welcome again to our new Moderator (or should it be "Moderatess" or, even better...."Moderatrix?).

Those of you who know me know that I generally have quite conservative taste in pens. Basically, other than my Esterbrooks, I will use anything so long as its big and black.

Similarly, until recently falling under the influence of more adventurous souls, such as dear Phthalo, I was a strictly blue and black ink user. Now I am slowly branching out into at least different shades of blue and even, shock horror, green , brown and red.

In paper I have traditionally resorted to the local newsagent or supermarket for cheap and nasty notebooks and writing pads.

Then about a year ago I came across Moleskines, which thankfully are now readily available in Australia, and Rhodia.

Now of course I am addicted to Rhodia in all its manifestations and have searched high and low for sources in Australia. I am using my existing stock at home and work and am chewing through an A4 pad every 2 weeks.

I am reliably informed that there is currently no importer of Rhodia in Australia and, although one retailer who has a relationship with Clairfontaine has tried to convince them to include some Rhodia product in an order, nothing has come in.

Thankfully a few UK and US suppliers have smiled on me and will happily ship to Australia. Unfortunately the postage costs make the process unviable with a package of 4-6 notebooks attracting as much as $US 50-75 postage.

My question to the Paper Pundits is: Do you have any suggestions as to how to encourage Rhodia to establish a presence in Australia?

Alternatively can anyone think of a more cost-efficient method of getting the goodies down to Australia?

Your gems of wisdom would be greatly appreciated?

Jim

Unfortunately, there aren't any reasonably priced international shipping options any more, at least not in the US. A couple days ago I shipped a 27-pound box of sample parts to my business partner in Tokyo and it cost me $114! There is no cheaper option, unfortunately. Your best bet honestly might be to try to get a business or businesses down there to place a wholesale order.

You could also try to get together a group buy. Get enough interested parties together who want to buy maybe five or eight or a dozen Rhodia notebooks each that you can yourselves place a wholesale order. If you can get enough people together to order in wholesale quantities, the discounted price of the products themselves would easily make up for the cost of sea or air freight shipping.

One last option might be to try to have someone you know who lives in a country that has them easily available and who is also planning a visit to Australia to stock up and bring them in a suitcase for you.

Best of luck to you. Let us know if something works for you.

EDIT: I might add that with a group buy, even if you can't buy wholesale directly from the manufacturer/distributor, if you have enough people ordering together, the relative cost of shipping (per notebook) will still be in a much more palatable range.

Jim: If we resort to a group buy, I'll order a stack of them with you.

Martin at The Writing Desk now stocks some Rhodia products and I'm sure he would help you but (sorry Martin!) the prices are very high for one-offs.

The cheapest UK prices seem to be here but they won't ship overseas. I'd be happy to buy some items for you and ship them on but you are limited to a package weight of under 2kg using the normal postal services and you may have to pay import duties. 2kg doesn't go far - a single one of their lovely A4 oversize pads weighs over just over 500g so you would only get three of these in one package. Three pads cost about £10 in total, the postage cost for 2kg is just over £10 for surface mail, just over £20 for airmail so it probably doesn't make economic sense. I think a courier delivery would be too expensive to contemplate.

Andy

Thank you Andy and David. Your input has been really helpful.

I think I really knew that postage pain was the only way but I just wanted to hope against hope that someone had the secret.

I have recently been in touch with Martin and he has done a lot to help with minimizing the cost of an order to Australia.

I think that a bulk order on behalf of two or more FPNers is the way to go.

Thanks again.

Jim

There is an international flat rate envelope from USPS for about $10-$11 (this was before price increase though, not sure the price now but it shouldn't sway that much). You can stuff all you can into this envelope (maximum 4 pounds).

Depending on the size of Rhodia notebooks you want, you can probably put a few small ones or 2 A4 size & about 2 small ones. I can help you purchase some if you want.

That's the cheapest method.

Thank you very much Betty. That is a very kind offer. I am currently waiting for some US and UK suppliers to come back with their estimates.