Greetings everyone. I'm looking for suggestions on how to ship camera batteries in a cost-effective manner.
As per my local DTDC guy, lithium-ion batteries cannot be shipped by air and can only be shipped via surface delivery and the minimum package size for surface delivery is 5 kg.
Which means, for a battery weighing 50-100g, I'll end up paying the equivalent shipping cost for a 5 kg.
Looking forward to suggestions in this regard.
This is true. DHL/Bluedart also say something similar.
Batteries, power banks and powered electronics will be shipped by surface transport and will be chargeable at a min of 10kg weight
Honest approach : don't ship
and then what a crook would do which I never suggest : disembowel any dud walkman, radio or some such gadget which must be lying there and wedge the battery inside with tape etc. and send as a gift.
DTDC ground ships at the actual cost for me. They don't ask what the contents are for ground packages. Just package Lithium Ion batteries well.
I've never had problems shipping batteries along with bodies as a "Care" package with DTDC at actual weight.
Registered letter/package works with India Post. Registered letters are handled better than parcels. My experience is that India Post works quite well within South India but you need to package parcels extremely well. Speedpost doesn't accept electronics & batteries.