Hi All Often, small components & materials for my stained glass business are only available in the USA, or are much cheaper over there than here (Ireland). I've got an opportunity to buy some wholesale items, but the folks over that side of the pond are often a bit clueless about shipping costs & methods to destinations outside the USA - which pushes the overall price up.
Parcel2go have been pestering me to use their service - so I tried an online quote (USA - Irl) - and their website declined to give an answer. Contacted their online chat - and was told that I'd need to set up a USA Rent Address - as per
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is a new one on me - anybody ever heard of this, and does it work ? Sounds tempting, as lots of my potential suppliers offer free-within-the USA delivery - so I'd be paying a properly-calculated rate for the trans-atlantic delivery...
...somehow it all looks a bit dodgy - and I don;t want to get involved in anything 'complicated'
The US domestic market is so huge that a lot of suppliers have no clue how to ship internationally. Also, a lot of US suppliers have no clue about their liability and/or their products' suitability for the European market (i.e. they have no idea about CE marking). They often have no clue as to whether they're even allowed to export their goods. Consequently, many of them can't be bothered with pesky forr'ners wanting stuff shipped all over the place.
Consequently, the only way to get stuff out of the US is to get the supplier to ship to a valid US postal address (valid in the opinion of FedEx/UPS/USPS, where someone will sign to accept the delivery) and then sort out the international expedition from there.
I've not used Parcel2go's "Extract from US" service, but I've been happy with their service generally. It looks like Parcel2go have rented an industrial unit in Miami (because DHL, UPS and FedEx have hubs at Miami International Airport) and employ people to be there to accept parcels from FedEx/UPS/USPS and then expedite them worldwide using the P2G reference in the (US) address to print another address label with your destination address on. This is a good way of solving a tricky problem, provided your friendly local US supplier is happy to ship to a consignee address, rather than your PayPal or Credit Card address.
If you're doing a few shipments a year, then this system could save you plenty, depending on the customs and excise/vat situation arrangement, and is IMO well worth the £20 they're asking.
So, checklist:-
Are they/you allowed to ship the goods internationally (i.e are they hazardous?)
Will the import duties/VAT make the shipment worthwhile?
Are you going to be spending enough to make the £23.50 annual charge for the consignee address worthwhile.
4a. Will the supplier ship to a consignee address instead or your PayPal/Credit card address.
what physical amount we talking here? large boxes, couple of hunderd kgs when packed well?
if so I would be talking to "freight forwarders" in ireland to get quotes for them to arrange (via their agents in US) to receive, collate and trans-ship your stuff, properly insured etc by a method/ speed/price of your choice...
If you use a USA shipping address like this, who completes the customs declaration? the Uk VAT charge will be based on the declared value (plusthe declared shipping cost).
I've found some US companies only use couriers to ship even relatively low value stuff to the UK even when there's no rush. Even sometimes costing more than the item. My way round this is to get it sent to a pal in the US who then forwards it by the cheapest method. And can sometimes avoid import duty. ;-) A pro service doing the same would be a good idea.
Not quite in that league ! More like 1 cube ft boxes, a couple per month - that sort of thing.... not quite in the 'freight forwarding' area
Very much smaller scale than that - just annoying when you price up a purchase at $130 for goods and $60+ for postage.....
- when you know full well that there's barely $30 of actual postage costs if packed in a 'standard box' - but the supplier insists on using a much bigger, unnecessary & more expensive box....
Quick note on that front - everything I've had sent to me via FedEx recently (to my address in the US) has been marked as not needing a signature. AFAIK it's up to the seller to indicate that.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian Brentnall saying something like:
I've bought a fair bit of gear from the US over the past decade. Before USPS dropped their slow-boat rate, it was the cheapest by a long way, if slow. Sometimes the smaller slow-boat stuff was lobbed on a plane and got here within 48 hours. Now, the cheapest USPS service is 1st Class International, which is quick enough and ok for items up to around 5kg, iirc. Unfortunately, most US retailers don't know about it and tend to quote silly rates, eg, Express, UPS, DHL, etc, so need to be reminded.
- who offer a US mailing address and then re-ship to Ireland. I'm currently ordering stuff from US-based suppliers and will ask Shipito to consolidate the whole lot and send it on its way...
Sounds like a good service - I'll report back on how successful it is in practice...
And there was you thinking I didn't have a rashers!
The 'pal' connection is the best; my 'pal' I don't really know as he is the brother of a close mate and I've only met him a couple of times over a long time period. I chatted him up a year or so ago for a spare that was only available in the US and they wouldn't ship out of the US.
I should have tried him again recently when I bought blades for my Bosch multitool; the seller coped with the posting OK, but it got intercepted by customs - VAT I could cope with but the PO then slapped =A38 for their handling of a small box.
If I have a work colleague travelling over that is always best route .... for times when it can't wait .... I ask the seller to send by USPS
Note this is NOT UPS
Take a look at
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request priority mail international. Most of the time I do not incur duty charges ... on the odd occasion there is, I pay on-line and no problem, it's delivered.
If the seller uses UPS you WILL get duty charges and also get a UPS handling fee of £10 on top of charges and VAT on the lot.
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