Balikbayan Box Then And Now

By: Timothy Gomez Click author's name for more of his/her articles

A Balikbayan box is a box usually used by Filipinos living abroad to send gifts and many other things to their families in the Philippines. It was called a Balikbayan box due to Filipinos coming back from the states that usually carries big, bulky boxes, thus calling it Balikbayan's or "returnee's" box. But later on, Balikbayan boxes was then used to send gifts and many other useful things such as toiletries, beauty products, perfumes, as well as things that can be used in the house such as cleaning materials. The use of a Balikbayan box became popular not only because of the gifts or "Pasalubong" inside the box, but also because of its benefits for the senders, which is the OFWs (overseas Filipino workers).

Benefits of Balikbayan Boxes
The difference of using a Balikbayan box from a conventional packages is its bulk. Balikbayan boxes are usually big and bulky so as to accommodate the number of things that an OFW would like to send to their families. This is done to eliminate the need to send separate boxes to the Philippines, which is far more expensive that sending it in bulk. The only drawback is it takes more time to send it in bulk than sending it individually. This is because an OFW would have to collect all that they need to send, before actually sending it, whereas sending it individually wouldn't need for the long wait for everything to be arranged.

Disadvantages
Because of the time required to set up a Balikbayan box, OFWs would have to sacrifice to make more time in preparing the box to be sent to their families. Although OFWs could do it on their free time, this could take longer. Usually, an OFW would take several trips to grocery stores, gift shops, or different apparel stores or electronic stores to get the thing they wanted to send in place. Once this is done, the OFW would then hire a courier company that could get provide them the courier service they need. Then, after choosing which company to hire, they will then need to carry the box, which would usually weight for about 20-25kg, to the courier office.

Another drawback of using balikbayan boxes is the time in which the recipient would have to wait before receiving the box, usually taking months. This is because sending a Balikbayan box through ship freighters are very slow. Although air freights are faster compared to ship freights, usually taking 2-3 weeks, sending balikbayan boxes by air can be more expensive than ship freighters.

Online Shops
Because of online shops the provides easier and faster way to send gifts and many other things through the use of the internet, the use of balikbayan boxes have begun to decline. The time that OFWs would spend in online shopping would only require several minutes, whereas preparing a balikbayan box would usually require several days. The time in which gifts from online shops arrives to its recipient would usually take 1 week whereas balikbayan boxes would take 2 weeks to 1 month, depending on the type of freighter used. But there are still several advantage on the use of balikbayan boxes.

Advantage of Balikbayan boxes from Online Shops
The advantage of using Balikbayan boxes from online shops is that OFWs could send items which are not available in some online shops, such as those from the Philippines. Another is that items found in online shops are much more expensive than items sold in actual shops. There are some courier companies, such as LBC, that now offers Filipinos faster and easier way to send their Balikbayan boxes by providing pick up services on the OFWs address.Visit the website http://www.lbcexpress.com.