Buy and Ship buyandship

Business Money
1

Someone here recommended “Buy and Ship” to me when I was trying to get my blender (eventually I found one on sale on Amazon and just went through them, which was reasonable).

Then I realized I’m not far from the local Buy and Ship office, so I stopped in and talked to them today. It’s a service where if you’re ordering from the US you ship to a warehouse they have and they (eventually) deliver it to you in Taiwan for ~150 nt/pound. If I could find a way to do small orders for 300nt it would be a good deal for me. That said, they get HORRIBLE reviews on google, with a large number of folk complaining that they are slow, lose items, charge more than expected, etc.

So… it still seems like because their office is nearby it might be worth it to me. Has anyone else used it? Any experience of how it works. It does look like there’s some online tracking involved and only a Chinese website for interface. May have my parents do a trial run for me and see how it goes.

2

What kind of blender is this?

I bet 90% chance it’s made in China, and Taobao sells the exact same thing.

Shipping by sea from Taobao is 10RMB per kg (not pound), and they are reliable and not that slow. You could buy furniture from them.

Why bother with American seller who is too luosuo and charge very high customs tax on top of expensive shipping cost?

3

I’ve used most of the different shipping services in Taiwan and some from China. With the blender, I really promise they weren’t available on Taobao (see the earlier thread for the specifics).

I was asking specifically about buy and sell services for US products, since sometimes there isn’t a local parallel. (As an example, with shoppee I can now find larger shoes that fit in a few brands, but it’s work looking and often it’s still not the right thing and nowhere near the options.) I can’t tell how popular these services are, or how long they’ll last, since their claim to fame seems to be cheaper shipping and not import duties.

4

There are so many shipping agents out there, so if you don’t have a good feeling about this one, skip it. There is MyUS and they’re pretty good, but shipping fee is a bit high and they use Fedex, which is guaranteed it will be taxed. So if you’re fine with that, it is a good alternative.

5

That’s interesting–looks very similar. Curious how many of these companies there are and what percent of folk here use them.

6

I have used them, but honestly I found it not much cheaper. I used them thinking I could save money but the suppliers I ordered from charged domestic shipping, which is only 40% of international shipping charge, that it ends up not being worth it. That and 100% chance of paying tax makes it really not worth it, on top of paying international shipping cost too. I instead opted to just buy and ship direct.

I would do that unless the seller absolutely will not ship outside of lower 48 (some are xenophobic like this).

7

I have been using buyandship. I’ve shipped some small music-related items (around 150nt), a laptop (800nt to ship), and a phone (around 250nt). I’ve ordered a smart watch but no updates since I ordered it more than three weeks ago.

The upside of this system is that it’s quite cheap and has been reasonably fast. The hassle factor is that you have to enter the domestic shipping info and then re-enter it when things arrive in Hong Kong (their shipping center).

Has anybody else tried this? Any advice on what to do if something isn’t showing up in their system. I am mostly using it for ebay items that only ship domestically.