What is mail forwarding

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Here's how to buy the best at the lowest prices.

Mail forwarding is when you buy goods in the US or Europe, and then they are quickly and safely delivered directly to your home.

Why mail forwarding is needed

Try googling the cost of a chic red iPhone 7 on Apple's Russian website, and then on the American one. In Russia, the iPhone 7 RED costs 61,000 rubles, and in the United States at the current dollar exchange rate - only 43,000 rubles, that is, 18,000 less.

Foreign online stores compare favorably with ours. Their prices are lower, and the assortment is much wider. Many Western brands are not represented in Russia at all. Their goods must literally be obtained, as in the Soviet deficit.

The problem is that many online stores in the US and Europe do not accept Russian bank cards and do not deliver goods to Russia. Accordingly, in order to buy something abroad at the lowest price, you will need:

1. A card that is accepted in the country where you buy the product.
2. Postal address in the country where you buy the product.
3. Assistant in the country where you buy the product. He must accept the goods from himself, and then send to you.

Mail forwarding is a service that gives you everything you need to shop abroad. The service providing such a service is called an intermediary, mail forwarder, or simply "".

Lifehacker has been using Qwintry services since 2013. For more than four years we have been buying goods in the USA and Europe through this mail forwarder and are always happy with everything.

How Mail Forwarding Works

It all starts with your desire to buy abroad at low prices and quick registration. It is enough to indicate your e-mail, and you will already have your own account.

Register in "Qwintry" →

After creating an account, you will have access to everything you need to easily purchase goods on two continents, namely:

Personal mailing address in the USA and Europe

"Qwintry" lives in the tax-free state of Delaware and Berlin. The mail forwarder has his own warehouses there.

The goods you bought come to the Qwintry warehouse, after which specially trained people pack them in waterproof bags, combine everything into one package to make delivery cheaper, and glue the box with reinforced tape to protect it from invisible opening. These services are free of charge.

At your request, the packer will photograph the contents of the parcel before shipment and take measurements, which is important for clothes and shoes. If the size turned out to be unsuitable, the goods can be returned from the Qwintry warehouse back to the store. These services are paid, but very useful and in demand.

"Qwintry" stores the purchased goods in the warehouse for 45 days free of charge. This means that you can order a bunch of everything in different parts of the United States or Europe, regardless of the delivery time to the mail forwarder. When all purchases arrive at the Qwintry warehouse, they will be combined into one package and sent to you.

Combining several packages into one is called consolidation and saves a lot of money. Be sure to use it when purchasing multiple items.

Purchase Assistance Service

If the store does not accept your card, the mail forwarder will buy all the goods you need. Qwintry has its own bank cards, which are accepted in any foreign stores. The "Help with Purchase" service also includes placing an order. Simply put, you just need to drop Qwintry links to goods, and the mail forwarder will do the rest.

Learn more about Purchase Assistance →

4 delivery methods

The buyer pays for saving money in time. Depending on the delivery method and city, waiting for the parcel may take from 7 to 35 days. Obviously, electronics, clothing, footwear and other goods that are most often ordered abroad do not belong to the category of extra urgent purchases. These are planned acquisitions.

1. Air (8-14 days) - own delivery of "Qwintry" by plane, and then to the pickup point in your city or by courier to the door. Cheap, fast and reliable - our choice.
2. Ecopost (15–35 days) - direct flight to Europe, and then by Russian Post. To pick up the parcel, respectively, you need to at the post office.
3. USPS Priority (10–20 days) - delivery by state mail in your country. You need to pick up the parcel at the post office.
4. USPS Express, also known as EMS (8-15 days), is also state mail, but faster, safer and with a courier to your door.

Full insurance

No one will ever be able to give you a 100% guarantee that nothing will happen to the package. The likelihood of force majeure is extremely small, but you know that customs occasionally show off, transport planes fall, and trucks turn over, and they do this without warning anyone in advance.

The chance that something will happen to your package is comparable to the probability of winning the lottery. But if the inner paranoid haunts, just use it.

$ 3 for every $ 100 of the cost of goods in a parcel is a perfectly acceptable price for peace of mind and a guarantee of full compensation of costs in case of force majeure.

Why Mail Forwarding Is So Popular

Mailforwarding is fully consistent with common sense and the real needs of people. This service does not impose new items of expenditure and offers only what you already want: to buy the necessary and desired goods at the lowest prices.

Technology has given everyone the opportunity to visit any online store in their country, and mail forwarding has made online shopping global. If there is a product you need on sale somewhere on Earth, then you will find and buy it at the best price without getting up from the couch.

Raffle for Red iPhone 7 and Sony PlayStation 4 Pro + VR

Lifehacker and "Qwintry" announce a competition for residents of Russia and the CIS! You can win a chic red iPhone 7, as well as a set of Sony PlayStation 4 Pro game console and PlayStation VR headset.

Three simple conditions for participation in the competition:

1. Create an account in Qwintry, if you still don't have one.
2. Subscribe to the Qwintry page in or.
3. Make an entry on your Facebook, VKontakte or Twitter with the text:

Pin the entry and make your profile public so we can check if the competition conditions were met.

Made? Now fill out the form and that's it.