Why two things at the same price cost very different amounts to bring in

Here is a thing that makes no sense until somebody explains it, and then makes complete sense forever.

Two items. Both about the same weight on a kitchen scale. One costs a few hundred pounds to bring into Egypt; the other costs several thousand. Nothing is wrong, and nobody is overcharging. The difference is that space is charged as though it were weight.

Volumetric weight, in one line

Anything that carries goods has a fixed amount of room in it. A large light box takes room that a small heavy one does not, and room is the thing actually being sold. So the cost of moving something is worked out on whichever is greater: what it really weighs, or what its size says it should weigh.

That second figure has a name — volumetric weight — and a formula that is standard almost everywhere:

length × width × height, in centimetres, divided by 5,000.

A box 40 × 30 × 20 cm gives 24,000 ÷ 5,000 = 4.8 kg of volumetric weight. If the thing inside actually weighs 1 kg, you are still charged for 4.8 kg. If it actually weighs 9 kg, you are charged for 9.

What that does to a real order

Our calculator, run on 7 September 2026:

The bag weighs three times what the headphones weigh, and is charged as though it weighed ten. It is a large box with almost nothing but air inside, which is exactly what volumetric weight is designed to price. The headphones are dense — the scale and the tape measure agree — so they are charged on what they really are.

That is why the headphones land at 1.7× their dollar price and the bag at 4.3×.

How to guess before you order

You do not need the formula. You need one question: is this mostly air?

Things that are mostly air, and therefore expensive to bring in:

Bags, cases and anything hollow

Shoes, especially boots — a shoebox is far bigger than its contents

Kitchen things with volume: pans, mixing bowls, storage sets

Anything in retail packaging designed to look impressive on a shelf

Supplements and powders, which are large tubs of very little weight

Things that are dense, and therefore cheap to bring in relative to their value:

Electronics: headphones, cameras, small speakers

Watches and jewellery

Perfume

Phone and laptop accessories

Anything small that costs a lot

The two ways to make it cheaper

Order small cheap things together rather than one at a time. Some costs barely move with the size of an order, so they spread — but how much that helps depends entirely on what you are buying. Two $18 books ordered together cost about 18% less than two ordered separately. Two $120 pairs of shoes save about 2%, because on shoes the product price already dominates. Worth doing; not worth overestimating.

Skip the presentation box where you can. This is not always possible and not always desirable — a gift should look like a gift — but a pair of shoes without its display packaging is a smaller box, and a smaller box is a cheaper one.

Why we tell you this

Because you would find out anyway, and it is better that you find out before you order rather than when you see the price and wonder what we are playing at.

Every price on this site is a single final number, worked out from the real box and the real weight — that is why our own product pages carry the dimensions when we know them. If a thing is expensive to bring in because it is a large box of air, the price will say so, and you can decide it is not worth it. We would rather you decided that than felt tricked.

Try it yourself with the calculator — put in a size and watch the number move — or read what it really costs to buy from America to Egypt for the full picture. If you want a real figure for a real thing, send us the link.