Online shopping abroad: how to choose a reseller?

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

Recently, more and more people are imbued with the idea of online shopping in overseas stores. Why people do this is easy to understand. Firstly, you do not have to overpay the seller's margin for rent and other details, and secondly, for some reason it has historically happened that in most Russian offline and online stores prices are an order of magnitude higher than in foreign ones (the margin is sometimes unreasonably high), thirdly, you do not need to go to shopping centers on your weekends and crowd among the same "lucky ones", buy at least one in the morning! I think that these arguments are enough to think about online shopping in foreign stores. There is only one drawback here: not all online stores have direct delivery to the country where you are located. The intermediary services are called upon to solve this pressing problem, and we will now deal with the analysis of the features of each of which.

In order not to spread our thoughts along the tree, let's dwell on the three most popular services according to our readers' version (EbayToday and ShopFans), collecting basic data in a general table for comparison.

		EbayToday	ShopFans
Countries with which the service works	USA, Austria, China (there was a warehouse in Hong Kong, which is temporarily unavailable due to the relocation of the warehouse to another location)	USA, England, Germany, China	USA
Service: warehouse	Processing one incoming parcel - $ 8.50	The cost of processing each parcel is $ 3	$ 3 - processing a parcel weighing up to 3lb (1.3 kg) $ 5 - processing a parcel weighing 3lb and more
Service: combining several parcels	Virtual mailbox. $ 10 per month or $ 50 per year. Fee for each parcel on a virtual box - $ 2.50	Is free	Is free
Service: purchase and shipment to the country of destination	Purchases through an intermediary cost $ 8.50 for every 10 unique positions, the service commission is 8% of the total cost of goods, and the bank commission is 4.3%	Service commission - $ 10	-
Shipping cost calculator
Cost and terms of delivery of the cheapest parcel weighing 1 kg from the USA to Russia	$ 16.05 (Airmail Economy) Without insurance and tracking number	$ 19.45 (First-Class Mail International) Without insurance and tracking number	$ 37.49 (Priority-BWW) There is a tracking number
Free storage in the warehouse	90 days	30 - 45 days (depending on the selected service)	60 days
Insurance	A combination of carrier insurance and self-insurance is used. You can check the cost in the shipping calculator.	Insurance. Details - at the stage of collecting the parcel. If it is a smartphone or cell phone, the insurance will be 5% of the cost.	The package can be insured up to $ 1000 at the rate of $ 3 for every $ 100 of insurance. (They are insured only in case of non-receipt of the parcel).
Content photo	+3 photos - $ 1	+3 photos - $ 1 +10 photo - $ 2.5	$ 5 you can order photos of the entire contents of the received parcel. The number of photos is not limited!

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What extra. information and actions are required from you when using the services?

In general, this is the verification of your account by providing certain documents (scan of your passport, your photo with your passport, and so on). Also, when placing orders, you will have to fill out customs declarations. It is not difficult, but if you are lazy, intermediary services can do it for you for a little extra. fee.

What you need to remember so that the experience of the first time does not turn out to be deplorable for you:

- If the order is for a large amount, always use insurance and tracking shipping method (with tracking number).

- If you want the service to make a purchase for you, it is better to ask in advance whether it works with a particular store (this applies to cases of purchase in small or small online stores).

- Make sure that the reverse withdrawal of funds will not be inconvenient for you.

- All services have shipping calculators and several shipping methods. Try different ones and look at the total amount.

- Before paying for a purchase in a store, look for discount codes in that store (on sites such as).

- For those who are very careful, I recommend that you enable SMS-informing about transactions with your card (if it is not already enabled for you).

I hope you find this information useful. Ask questions in the comments, write which intermediary services you prefer and why.