APO shipping question

[Shimmishim]

Can someone explain how shipping to an APO works? Someone is interested in buying something but it has to be shipped USPS.

Thanks!

 

[FoBoT]

APO and FPO work somthing like this:

you send it via USPS

USPS sends it to an army or navy base
at that point, they pass it off to the army/navy who then transports it to whereever the army guy is or to the ship the navy guy is on

so if you send something to a guy on an aircraft carrier in the persian gulf, the package may go to a FPO in florida , then the navy may take it on a cargo plane to some navy base near the gulf, then fly it out to the ship and deliver it onboard to the guy

this way no matter where a military person is deployed, they can get US mail at reasonable rates. if you shipped it to them to a local address (which they don't have anyway), you would pay normal international shipping rates and it would cost too much, so nobody would get mail while deployed

and navy people wouldn't get anything since you can't send stuff to the middle of the ocean any other way

 

[LukFilm]

Best way is to ship USPS Priority Mail WITH insurance. Basically USPS ships it to New York and from there it goes via Military Mail to its final destination.