Five Reasons to Use Canada Post's Light Packet Service For Your Overseas Packages

Canada Post's Light Packet service is designed for "lightweight non-document goods" being mailed out of Canada. Simply put, it's Oversize Lettermail for things that aren't letters. It's a real help to those of us who send gifts to people outside the country each year. Why?
It costs (usually) no more than Oversize Lettermail. As of this writing, any Light Packet weighing up to 100 grams can be sent anywhere in the world for just $3.75. No Light Packet costs more than $12.80 to mail.
The weight and size specs are the same as for Oversize Lettermail. Anything up to 500 grams, 27 by 38 centimetres (roughly 10 ½ by 14 inches), and up to 2 centimetres thick (the height of the slot on an average mailbox) qualifies.
You can send items that can't be sent by Lettermail or Letterpost. CD's, for example - recordings can't be sent out of Canada in a "letter", but they're fine in a Light Packet. So are jewellery, feathers, keys, pens - anything not dangerous or illegal. After all, you can't send your faraway relatives posters of the CN Tower every year.
It costs just a little more to send your Light Packet by air. Two dollars and change is the usual difference between surface and air rates. That's not much to spend to get your package there a lot faster. And speaking of fast delivery -
A Light Packet can be there in as little as four days. Of course, that is the minimum, not the average. But it gives you an idea how quickly these packages move.
Light Packets have their downside, too, of course. You can't get insurance for them in case they're lost or damaged, and they can't be returned if undeliverable. But ask yourself: How often have you had packages lost or damaged anyway? In nearly 20 years of mailing packages in and out of Canada, it's happened to me only once. As for undeliverable packages - do you really want to send something to a person who moved without telling you?
If you regularly mail packages from Canada to any other country, Light Packets are your friend.
Jane Wangersky is the author of In Small Packages: Gifts You Can Mail at Canada's Lowest Postal Rates.